


The Last Chance

by Andiiwamp7



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, Drama, Romance, Slow Burn, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:33:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25127050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andiiwamp7/pseuds/Andiiwamp7
Summary: Ellie is being haunted by the demons of her actions, she came back only to realize how lost she was.Dina is trying to move on with her life. Everything seems to be working just fine and things seem to be going back to normal.What happens when their paths cross one more time? Will they finally have the chance to be happy?(This is a story about what happened after the ending of the game)
Relationships: Dina & Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 184





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone. This is an idea that has been stuck in my brain for a while now and I finally decided to share it. I hope you enjoy it, and I apologise in advance for any mistake, English is not my first language.

**CHAPTER 1**

In the midst of what seemed to be an endless and restless, cold night, Ellie’s eyes snapped open suddenly as her body quickly reacted.

Her instinct was to sit down fast, her gaze scanning the place in an attempt to find any kind of menace.

Her breathing was raged and unsteady, her heartbeat as well, and even though she could feel sweat drops cascading down her forehead and running down her neck, she was cold.

Not the kind of cold that comes with a lovely winter night, or the cold provoked from the snowy days… it was a deeper cold, one that couldn’t be erased with anything.

  
She remained silent, hearing as her breathing slowly returned back to normal, she brought a hand to her chest to check that her heart was recovering and after a few minutes that certainly seemed like hours, she exhaled deeply.

There was nothing to worry about. At least for now.

It was relieving to know that she was having just a nightmare and that she was not in danger for real, but at the same time, it was a real torment.

  
Nightmares were a recurring thing now, nightmares that seemed so real that Ellie thought that at any moment she wouldn’t be able to wake anymore, she’d just end up trapped there, with all her demons and fears.

She was okay now, there were no signs of any infected around or any other movements, she could hear a bit of a breeze coming from outside the building which was nice to hear, but she knew her sleep was gone now. 

  
Ellie wiped her forehead with the back of her sleeve and slowly returned back to a laying position but she didn’t close her eyes.

  
It was hard to remember when her last night of good sleep was, lately she just closed her eyes a few hours during the night only to wake up abruptly and then she just rested a couple of minutes during the day before continuing.

  
Where was she going? Nowhere. That was the answer, Ellie had nowhere to go anymore.

  
She wasn’t really complaining though, where could she go now? 

  
She went back home time ago, only to find an empty house full of bittersweet and painful memories that were there to remind her how big of a mess she was.

At first she just tried to ignore it, that old, cozy farm had been her home anyways so there was no reason why she couldn’t stay there.

Only there was a reason, there were many reasons why she couldn’t stay. She tried her best to live there at first but as days passed she just decided to leave.

  
It was extremely painful to think how much excitement and happiness there was before, the first time she set a foot in that farm, and now… that was gone.

She didn’t have a home anymore nor a place to go back to. She could have gone back to Jackson of course, and she had thought about that plenty of times, but what for?

  
She didn’t deserve to be happy anymore, not after what she did, not after what she lost.

  
So this arrangement was much better. She stopped looking for a home a long time ago and focused her energies in surviving. 

  
She knew how to do it, she was not a kid anymore, she knew how to find supplies, she knew how to take down infected or when to run to not get in trouble. It was not that hard, she had weapons, some clothes, she didn’t need anything else.

  
Maybe other people could think of it as a bad thing, being lonely could seem scary and no one really likes it but somehow Ellie had grown to kinda like it.

  
It had been a year, maybe a year and a couple of months, who knew, she lost track of time, she hadn’t seen any other human beings ever since, there hadn’t really passed that much time but by now, it seemed like an eternity.

  
The first months were hard, she hated the silence, it made her go down to dive into her memories and thoughts and it was so overwhelming that it made her feel like she was going crazy.

Thinking was just a very dangerous idea but over the months she kind of got used to it.  
Silence stopped being a tortue somehow and it became her everyday life.

There was no one around her, she didn’t have to worry about pretending to be good or about trying to put on a smile for everyone to think she wasn’t breaking apart. There was just silence, and it was just herself, that’s all she needed right now.

  
She moved every few days, since many of the areas she found were completely abandoned, she could just find random houses and buildings if she needed to but mostly she enjoyed sleeping around the woods.

The vegetation was tall enough to be able to hide sometimes and certainly being in the nature alone was very peaceful, she just had to set a fire, place her belongings near her, and rest.

Then she could just simply go.

  
She exhaled once again, she was currently taking refuge in an old abandoned building, there had been a huge storm lasting for the last couple of days so in order to stay dry and have a place to rest she found that.

There was no rain outside at the moment, which maybe meant that by the morning she could leave and continue her schedule.

  
She just needed to wait for the day to begin, it was dark outside, Ellie was fully awake but even if she had turned into a very reckless person lately, she wasn’t silly, going outside in the dark was a huge risk that she didn’t want to take.

  
Not that she cared about her life anymore, it was funny somehow, how things fell apart so quickly, how quickly she fell alart, she used to have a purpose, a goal in life, she used to have allies and loved ones, she could even recall a time where she was genuinely happy.

But all that was gone.

  
All traces of happiness, and innocent memories were now just replaced with pain, she had become an expert of taming her thoughts and the silence during the days, but it was at moments like this, where she just couldn’t stand it.

  
It hurt like being stabbed in the chest several times to think of the past. It was something she wished she could do, she wanted to remember Joel, to remember those moments in which for a second she could feel like she had a family, to remember that person that didn’t just leave her… but those memories hurt way too much, thinking about him was overwhelming, because now he was gone.

  
Joel wasn’t with her anymore, and suddenly that though made her think of all the people that had just disappeared from her life.

  
Ellie was alone now.

  
Her jaw tightened as she clenched her teeth in anger. She stood up after some seconds of thinking and started pacing around the room while she brought her hands to her head.

  
Was she mad about the fact of being alone?

No. She deserved it, she threw everything away, all the good things she had in her life, she just pushed them away.

So she wasn’t raging now about her loneliness, she got what she deserved in the end.

  
What made her furious were the tears.  
After trying to remember she could feel them starting to fill her eyes, and a moment later they fell down her cheeks fast. And they were still falling, and she hated it.

  
Why was she crying anyways? She didn’t deserve to do such thing, she ruined her life so deeply that.. what was the point in crying now?

  
Tears weren’t going to give her back Joel, they weren’t going to clean her hands from all the blood that she spread, they weren’t going to give her back her happiness or erase the horrible memories and they weren’t going to change the fact that she ran away from the person who really loved her and stuck by her side for real.

  
Once this thought crossed her mind, Ellie froze in place “fuck” she mumbled as she slowly walked to a near wall and rested her forehead there.

  
That was a forbidden thought, and yet her mind went for a moment there, to remember black sparkly eyes, black soft hair and that face….

  
“FUCK” she screamed at the top of her lungs and punched the wall with all the strength she had.

  
The moment her hand collided with the wall she knew it was a bad idea, the sharp pain coming afterwards ran through her knuckles and went straight to her shoulder.   
She screamed, and new tears formed in her eyes.

  
It hurt, but it didn’t hurt as bad as the emptiness that she felt inside.

Somehow the pain from her bloody hand helped her snap out of her thoughts. It was not a solution, but she could focus on her hand, instead of focusing her attention on something that was completely lost.

  
She rested her back against the wall and slowly slided down to the floor until she was sitting, her legs crossed and her right hand holding her left one which was swollen and dripping blood now.

  
Ellie closed her eyes trying to breathe deeply, she needed to get some bandages and maybe a few painkillers to help with the pain, she couldn’t let that to get infected but she was good for the moment.

  
She could feel her heartbeat hammering against her knuckles which somehow made her remember that she was alive, and that she still had a heart, and slowly, as she concentrated in the pain that ran like electricity through her arm, she forgot about her memories for now, they weren’t completely gone but…

  
Her past was past, it was not coming back, she had made the decision to keep going with her life and this was what she had now, she needed to be alone, she had to think about the present.

* * *

  
It was very early in the morning, the sun wasn’t even out yet, but somehow Dina couldn’t sleep.

  
She had gone to bed relatively early, after bathing the baby and putting him to sleep she decided to get some rest too.

  
However, at some point of the night she just woke up and despite of her several attempts to fall asleep again, she just found herself turning and rolling on the bed constantly.

  
After a long time of just staring at the ceiling in the darkness of her room, Dina got up.

  
She put an old gown that she had over her pajamas and walked towards JJ's crib.  
Unlike Dina, JJ was sleeping soundly, his arms over his head, her body half covered by the sheets and making those cute sounds he usually made when he slept.

  
Dina smiled at the sight and proceeded to fix the sheets to cover her son properly. She couldn’t believe he was almost two years old, it was so scary how fast time could pass, and despite of the fact that he was growing up, there were days where she couldn’t really believe that she was a mother.

  
It was a challenge that was for sure. Luckily for her, JJ was a good baby, he never cried too much or caused much trouble, he was a cute little baby boy, but knowing that she had to go through his entire life alone was so scary that sometimes she just wanted to run away.

  
She had a huge responsibility, and it was very exhausting at times. But seeing her son, and seeing him at such peaceful state and seeing his innocence just made Dina forget about the complications of moderhood.

  
She left the room in silence, careful not to wake JJ, she was done rolling on the bed and it was going to be day anytime soon anyways so it was better to do something else.

  
Things would be better if she wasn’t alone, it was a thought that sometimes crossed her mind. Dina was a very focused person, she was hardworking and usually she spent her days focused on helping in everything she could so she could be free of her thoughts. It was pointless to think so much, it never brought anything good.

  
But at some times she allowed herself a moment of weakness.

  
Being alone was hard, too hard some days, it was like she had to carry all the weight of the world in her shoulders and that just felt so wrong.

But what could she do about it? It was not like she could just go around inviting every random person she found to her life. She wasn’t completely alone anyways so even if that wasn’t enough, at least it was a good start.

  
Dina walked to the kitchen, it was a small kitchen but very cozy, she didn’t have the amazing views she used to have at the farm but it was still nice.

  
She had no idea how but in the past months she had become a coffee person. At first she didn’t like it, the taste was too strong for her liking and she didn’t understand why some people were drinking it constantly but, after trying it a couple of times she started to think that it was not that bad.

It helped keep her awake during the nights where JJ wasn’t in a mood to sleep and also made the house smell nice.

  
She quickly prepared a mug of coffee and held it between her hands. The warmth that spread across her fingers was comforting, and she softly smiled as she smelled the soothing aroma.

  
“That’s all I needed” she said to herself as she walked to the front door.

  
Dina may not have a view now of wide open fields and woods but she had a porch.

  
Maybe it was silly to say but she was kinda proud of herself for finding that house and fixing it so she and JJ could have a home.

  
It was a small, cozy house far away from the center of Jackson, she loved the ambient there but she wanted quietness and peace.

The porch led to a small front yard that she had carefully decorated with a path of rocks and some flowers. It was not much, but it was hers, and she loved it. 

Dina stood outside for a moment and then took a seat in a wooden bench that she had there in the porch, it wasn’t as comfortable as the sofas inside the living room but it was lovely to feel the air of the early morning and hear the birds chirping softly.

  
She took a few sips of the coffee and felt the liquid warming up the inside of her mouth and her throat. It was a nice feeling. She closed her eyes to enjoy the moment and as she was taking another sip, she heard a familiar voice.

  
“Hey there” Maria’s voice was a bit raspy that day. Dina got a bit startled at first, her eyes traveled from her mug to the figure of the older woman.

She was standing outside the fence, her hands tucked in the pockets of her jacket and a smile drawn on her face.

  
“Hey” Dina said offering a smile as well.

  
“Can I come in?” Maria asked politely as she pointed to the old wooden fence door.

  
Dina nodded. “Sure” she said.

  
Maria crossed the small front yard and stood right in front of Dina, resting her back against one of the columns of the porch.

  
“What are you doing out there at this hour?” Maria asked with a slight concern “It’s a bit cold”

  
Dina smiled as her gaze fell down to look at the floor. “I don’t know… sleepless night I guess” she answered.

  
Maria nodded “I understand, I have plenty of those too”

  
“That’s why you came here?” Dina asked her.

  
Maria shrugged her shoulders slightly and let out a soft laugh “Well, I just finished the vigilance shift, I was passing by and I saw you here”

  
Dina nodded  
“How are you these days?” Maria asked after a few silent minutes.

  
Dina was ready to answer quickly, in the end she was used to people asking her questions lately, she didn’t really mind actually. But she knew Maria wasn’t asking to be polite. The woman’s eyes were fixed on her, scanning her with real worry. It made Dina feel a bit vulnerable but at the same time she just felt free to talk without putting up her walls.

  
“I don’t really know” she said honestly “I guess I’m better… most of the days I’m better. It’s hard but you know, I have my routine now, the house, JJ… things are getting better”

  
Maria offered a genuine smile and pointed to the bench asking Dina for permission to sit. The girl nodded and Maria took a seat next to her.

  
“I’m glad to hear that, you seem to be very focused lately”

  
“I am, I need to be. I mean I’m a mother now… I have to get my shit together and go on with my life”

  
Maria nodded in agreement “Seems like you’re doing good, although it also seems like I barely saw you around lately”

  
Dina took another sip from her coffee and shrugged her shoulders “Yeah… well I’ve been busy with.. the house, the baby, stuff in general. You know”

  
“Well look at you” Maria said proudly “You’re a mature adult now”

  
Dina laughed softly “I don’t know if I could call myself mature but I am adult now”

  
“Come on don’t be so hard on yourself, adulthood is certainly not an easy task to conquer, I know plenty of old adults who are way to far to be mature…” She made a pause to laugh “I guess the point is in keep going”

  
“That’s true” Dina said “I'm trying”

  
“That’s a good step”

  
“I just wonder…” Dina started but then stopped herself midsentence. Maria looked at her and raised her eyebrows expectantly.

  
“What?” she asked

  
Dina exhaled deeply “I don’t know it’s stupid”

  
“Hey I’m not here to judge you, just say it” Maria said offering a warm smile.

  
“I just wonder how long do I have to try or how hard do I need to try until it gets real better” Dina said finally.

  
Both women looked down and remained silent for a couple of minutes. 

  
“I wish there was a correct answer for that” Maria said sadly. “I guess you have to rely on the thought that time makes things better in the end”

  
“How much time do I need?"

  
“I guess that’s something only you can figure out”

  
Dina cleared her throat and looked into the sky, the blue dark painted by millions of stars was now tainted with orangy and pink tones as the sun started to make an appearance.

  
Maria was right actually. But it didn’t make much difference, time would heal her but how deep were her scars by now? Wounds heal in the end, no wounds stays open forever; but some wounds are just too deep and too severe to heal just like that, they need time to stop bleeding, time to stop hurting and time to scar.

And she didn’t really know in which state her wounds were.

  
“I just feel so out of place” she mumbled “like somehow this is not my life… I mean I’m good, I have JJ which is like the best thing I have in my life now, makes me want to get up every morning and gives me a reason to keep fighting… but I don’t know there’s just so many things I miss”

  
Maria nodded in understanding and sighed “I understand, we live hard times now, everything is uncertain, and well we sadly lose so many people in the way that sometimes it’s overwhelming, but we’re fighters, giving up after all we fought for would just be a real defeat”

  
“I’m not planning on giving up” Dina said with decision “I want to move forward”

  
“I’m so glad to hear you say that” Maria said “You are surely a tough one” she nudged Dina’s arm softly and they both laughed.

  
“It’s been almost two years” Dina said with a heavy voice

  
“I know”

  
“I really want to focus on the future now, forget everything…”

  
Maria stood up and looked back at her with a gentle look “As for forgetting everything… I don’t really have any advice for that, just that memories are our own, sometimes they’re our key to joy and remember the good moments, the ones that help us want to keep going and sometimes sadly they’re like our personal hell … but they’re ours anyway we can’t leave them behind. But as for focusing in the future…”

  
She made a dramatic pause which caused Dina to look at her with curiosity.

  
“What?” the girl asked

  
“Well, fall will be here soon, and we haven’t really had any good news around here lately so, we’re running a party”

  
“A party?”

  
“It was not my idea, some people from the neighborhood suggested that we could do a celebration, you know, dancing, drinking, mingling” Maria finished her sentence smiling brightly 

  
Dina laughed “I don’t know if I’m in the mood of mingling” she said accentuating the last word

  
“Oh dear, you need to mingle, never met anyone who needed mingling as much as you do”

  
“Hey that’s not true!” Dina protested

  
“When was the last time you had a real conversation with an adult without having JJ to worry about or just had a friend come over?”

  
“I have friends” Dina said “I talk to them… I talked to them recently”

  
“When?” Maria asked as she folded her arms over her chest.

  
Dina tried to remember but she couldn’t really tell “ugh… I’ve been busy lately”

  
Maria shook her head and laughed “Look I’m not going to pressure you or anything, you do what you feel like doing, but it would be nice for you to do something different some time, drink, dance, I don’t know get a little wild and kiss someone random maybe”

  
Dina heard that last sentence and suddenly she felt like she was stabbed in the guts. She swallowed heavily and looked down trying to hide her watery eyes.

  
Memories came back like a flooding, last time she was into a dance was that time when she danced with Ellie…

  
And that kiss …

  
She sighed deeply as the memory played in loop inside her brain, which made her feel a mix of emotions that she wasn’t really to deal with just yet.

  
Ellie was a chapter in her life that she was trying not to read anymore, but as much as Dina wanted to ignore the thoughts and just focus on her daily life she knew she couldn’t just erase the memories.

  
She wasn’t ready to get over it, it hurt terribly just by thinking about it, Ellie left. She abandoned her, and even if she had a reason… she just left without even considering the family they had.

  
All those thoughts invading her brain now just by thinking of a stupid kiss.

  
Suddenly her inner battle got interrupted when Maria spoke again, pulling Dina away from her thoughts.

  
“Is everything okay?”

  
Dina knew she wasn’t, at least not in that moment, she just wanted to go upstairs and cry her guts out until she didn’t have any tears inside of her. But she did plenty of mourning over the past year. She cleared her throat “yes, all good”

  
Maria didn’t seem too convinced by the answer but she didn’t push further  
“Okay, then how about you help us with the organization?”

  
“Me?”

  
“Yeah, we could use your help, no need to be there all day, you can just come when you finish your routes or have a spare moment, no pressure”

  
Dina thought about it for a second, and even if she was tempted to say no, she thought that maybe Maria was right, she had been too busy mourning and being sad, maybe it could be nice to change her routine for a while.

  
“Okay, I guess I can help you guys” she said “I don’t know if I’ll be too helpful with the mingling but I’ll do my best”

  
Maria smiled at her “Don’t worry, just bring your ass to help and that’ll be enough”

  
Dina nodded as she stood up as well, the sun was more bright now and she needed to check on JJ soon.

  
“Thanks for passing by” She said genuinely

  
“No problem, talking it’s always a good option for a sleepless night, but I gotta go, there’s some errands I still need to do and I could use some sleep now that I finished my shift”

  
“Yeah, I need to check on JJ and prepare his food”

  
“Go ahead, I know the way out”

  
Dina offered a smile and after that, Maria walked away.

  
Dina entered the house and walked to the kitchen to wash the mug and prepare JJ's breakfast, she felt weird.

  
Talking was certainly nice sometimes, but she was feeling a heavy weight on her chest.  
Why on earth did she need to remember Ellie just now?

  
She had been good for a couple of months now, maybe not hundred percent good but at least she had managed to go to bed without crying all night or cry in every corner of the house; she felt like she had done some progress but now all flew away through the window…

  
She placed her hands on the kitchen table for support and closed her eyes.  
“Fuck you Ellie” she mumbled angrily “I’m over you”.

  
Maybe she wasn’t completely over her… but it was a start. Ellie was in the past, she made her choice, and Dina and JJ weren’t even part in it, they were left out of the equation so, that was it.

There was no point in expecting anything or keeping memories of it. Dina needed to move forward and she needed to do it soon, because she didn’t want to spend the rest of her days mourning over a ghost.

  
She composed herself, cleared her throat and fixed her gown, and went upstairs to see JJ.

  
He was his reason now, she needed to keep going and be healed for him, he never asked for any of this and she was planning on being the best mother she could.

There was one thing she didn’t want for her son and it was loneliness. JJ wasn’t going to be alone, she would have a mother, no matter if Dina had to carry the entire weight of the world on her shoulders, she was going to do it for him, because that’s what mattered, they were still family, and she would fight for her family until the end.

* * *

The next time Ellie opened her eyes it wasn’t because of a nightmare. This time she wasn’t dreaming of anything, she opened her eyes when she felt some sunrays directly on her face, which made her feel a bit disoriented at first.

She remembered then that she was in an abandoned building, in front of her, across the room were lying the blankets she was using to sleep, she had fallen asleep in a sitting position.

  
Her eyes felt uncomfortable with the direct light and as she waited for her brain to fully wake she brought her hand close to her face to cover the light. But it was a terrible idea.

  
“Shit” she mumbled sleepily as she felt a rush of pain running down her hand.   
It was swollen still, the bandages she had put some hours ago were covered in blood now and in general it didn’t really look good.

  
She rolled her eyes annoyed and stood up slowly. She needed to go, the sun was a sign that there was no storm anymore so that meant she could move. Her hunting supplies were about to finish so she needed some more, besides she needed to make sure the area was clean of infected so she could move to the next town.

  
Why? She had no idea.

  
But rambling between towns was a better idea than staying in one place, she didn’t want to join any groups or any colonies, she had come across a few of them in the past months. Not all of them were friendly, some people just were hostile and wanted to steal supplies.

So Ellie didn’t trust anyone, being alone was a better guarantee of surviving. Being alone was so much better in many ways for her.

  
It took her longer than expected to pack her things, moving her hand was torture, even the smallest movement hurt like hell, but her stubbornness made her just try to ignore it.

  
She tucked her sheets, her flashlight and the rest of her belongings into her backpack and with that she was ready to keep her journey.

  
She left the building carefully checking her surroundings just in case, she didn’t want to mess up the tranquility by running into any infected.

  
She grabbed her gun which made her swear under her breath since just the movement of holding the weapon made her squirm in pain.

  
Her next task should be finding somewhere with water so she could wash her hand and bandage it properly.

  
It was a good idea, at least now she had a task for the day besides hunting.   
The day was warmer than the previous one, no clouds in the sky although the earth still smelled like wet mud, Ellie didn’t really mind that though, it was a nice smell, and everything was so still and silent that it was the perfect scenario to do some good research.

  
Quiet days were nice, no need to be alert every single second, spotting infected or potential dangers every step of the way.

Ellie liked some action from time to time but she cherished these kind of days.

  
She grabbed the straps of her backpack, took a deep breath and started walking.

  
There was not a definitive destiny yet, but she remembered seeing some kind of old houses not so far from where she was now, and she was pretty sure there was a river nearby, so the faster she walked the faster she would get there.

She could also use a shower and since she needed to wash her hand, why not?

Several hours of walking had Ellie exhausted, she felt tempted to stop many times but besides small stops to catch her breath a little bit she didn’t really stop.

  
Days may seem long but it’s surprising how fast they pass and how fast night falls. And if Ellie had learned something over the time it was that, it’s not safe to let the night fall on you while you are vulnerable.

You need to find somewhere to cover, make a fire or find a place to be secure until the day came again, it was the first rule.

So no stopping until she could find a place to stay the night.

  
Her orientation sense was better than ever lately, although sometimes it was a bit confusing, it was very easy to misplace buildings sometimes, or to forget in which direction you walk.

  
But Ellie was confident she remembered her way, and she felt extremely proud of herself when she heard the sound of running water not so far away.

  
The sound made her remember that she was thirsty, and that she was hot, she approached a pile of ruins that probably were some kind of statue or something in the past and a couple of steps further she finally saw the river.

  
Ellie looked around carefully, she checked the area and walked around a relatively small perimeter to make sure it was safe.

  
Once she was sure no one was around, she carefully placed her backpack on the floor and moved closer to the water so she could kneel to grab some with her hand to drink.

  
It was fresh and clean. And somehow it felt so nice, she could refill her bottles to have enough for a few days until she found some more water again, which was very good.   
She calmed her thirst and then decided to take care of her hand.

  
The contact with cold water almost made her scream in pain, it was like having needles through it, but it was necessary, all the dry blood and the dirt came off slowly as Ellie washed her hand carefully and even if it was horrible at first, after a couple of minutes it felt a little bit more relieved.

  
She sighed deeply once she was finished, and she decided to wash herself a little bit.

  
Ellie took her hoodie off, and grabbed a small cloth from her backpack. She wet it and ran it over her sweaty arms, her neck, her stomach, it was cold but it felt so good.

  
Definitely she missed to have a bathtub, she missed warm water and long baths where she could just relax and enjoy… she missed to have soap.

  
Maybe she could find soap somewhere, if she could find an old store or maybe a house that had abandoned soap inside she could grab it.

That was going to be in her to do list for the next days, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to carry some soap with her.

  
She kneeled once again and with her hands cupped a bunch of water to splash it on her face.

  
She was almost finished when she heard a cracking noise behind her.

  
There was one thing that you learn when you are on your own and you need to protect yourself: never let your guard down.

  
Ellie heard the noise and immediately, almost as if she was in autopilot she jumped, and grabbed her gun. She didn’t care if she was shirtless, there was no time to dress.

The faster you react, the better chance you have to surviving.  
Her eyes scanned every inch of the area, there was a big extension of vegetation and tall trees ahead of her, anyone could be there hiding.

  
She stood still for a minute, holding her gun ready to shoot and looking around.

  
There were no sounds coming again so Ellie assume maybe it was an animal, but she couldn’t let her guard down.

  
Quickly she put her hoodie back on, and grabbed her backpack, bath time was over so now she needed to find a safe place, specially if there was someone around. That place wasn’t secure anymore.

She walked past some bushes, her gun still ready and trying to make as less sound as possible. She needed to leave fast but she didn’t want to make any loud noises.

  
After what seemed an eternity but was probably around ten minutes, Ellie decided that she was out of danger.

  
An infected would have already jumped on her, they don’t wait that much to attach, and a human would have made any other noises, Ellie knew it well so whatever was that sound, it was now behind her.

  
She was about to put the gun away when suddenly she heard the cracking noise again but this time followed by a bunch of bushes and dry leaves moving.

  
Her heart started racing fast, as all her senses became alert, she got her gun back again and turned around ready to shoot at whatever that tried to come to her.

  
This time there was no silence, she could hear the bushes moving, and some kind of steps at a short distance.

  
She could run away of course but she wasn’t going to let anyone scare her.

  
Ellie had her finger lingering on the trigger and was about to shoot when instead of a human figure or an infected, she saw a big black figure emerging from the vegetation.

  
“What the hell?” she said out loud. Her voice came out raspy and very low, she wasn’t used to talk anymore, she couldn’t remember when was the last time she said more than two words out loud. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

  
She didn’t get an answer, at least not with words but a soft whinny came out from the black figure.

  
It was a horse, big black horse with a small white triangle stain in her face.

  
Ellie was delighted to see it at the beginning but then her alarms started to ring inside her brain. The animal had a saddle, and the reins were falling in front of its face.

  
So probably the horse was someone’s property and maybe its owner was nearby looking for it.

  
She once again held her gun ready to shoot and moved around the animal to check, which the horse didn’t seem to like because it seemed to become agitated.

  
Ellie got scared with the movement so she quickly put her gun down, and grabbed the reins to hold the horse in place.  
“Easy” she whispered as she carefully tried to run a hand over the black fur of the horse’s face. “Easy… mm” Ellie quickly took a look on the side of the horse “Easy boy” she said

  
The horse seemed to calm down, and Ellie fet a bit safer, there was no sing of any other movement around.

  
She assumed probably the horse escaped from somewhere, maybe the owner didn’t tie his rein well, or maybe died…

  
The horse didn’t seem to mind though, after calming down he just smelled some of the tall grass around and ate some.

  
Ellie needed to leave, it wasn’ta good idea to stay there for so long, and since it was going to be night in a few hours, she needed to find somewhere to stay.

  
She caressed the horses fur one more time and started walking again.  
Such a shame to lose such a nice horse like that she thought.

  
She had taken around ten or twelve steps when once again she heard the bushes moving behind her.

  
She looked behind and saw the horse walking at her pace following her.  
“No” she said “You can’t come"

  
She only got a whinny in response and as soon as she started walking she heard the horses steps behind.

  
“Jeez” she mumbled.

  
She stopped in her tracks suddenly and faced the horse. He was standing still, his take wiggling from time to time shaking the long black hair it had.  
Ellie analyzed the situation.

  
Having a horse was a good idea, mostly.  
She could go faster, she could get less tired walking and it would be easier to run away.  
In the other hand she needed to feed him, look after him and well, what if the owner was looking for him?

  
As she processed the information the horse seemed to be just fine eating grass and looking at her from time to time.

  
Ellie noticed that the next city was a few hours by foot so after a while of thinking she just took a decision.

  
“Fuck it” she said “You’re coming with me”  
The horse didn’t understand of course, he didn’t move.

  
But he left Ellie mount and once she grabbed the reins and pulled them they started moving.

  
It would be good to have a transport, she could carry more supplies so it was was a good idea after all.

  
“It’s been a long time since I had a companion” she said to the horse with a hoarse voice. “Just try to behave”

  
She wasn’t sure for how long she was going to need the horse, it was a good idea for the moment but since she wasn’t really going anywhere and she was just improvising maybe at some point they would have to separate.

  
Plus Ellie was traveling alone. She didn’t need company anymore, it was better that way but, maybe for now, just for now, she could have a friend, even if it wasn’t a human one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie seems to be happy with her new friend, and trying to manage her new life as best as she can, and Dina is just trying to stick to her plan to move forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, thank you for the kudos and comments. I'm delighted to see you guys like it. This story is just starting, there's a lot to come so buckle up!

Dina opened her closet looking for a change of clothes, her body was wrapped with a towel, and her hair was dripping wet, falling lose around her shoulders.

  
She didn’t need anything fancy, after all, she was just doing a route, she just needed something comfortable enough.

  
She stood there, in front of the closet with the doors wide open for a very long time and truth was that: she wasn’t even checking the clothes anymore.

  
Her gaze was fixed in some point between a few jackets hung in the corner, and her brain was just somewhere else.

  
Having a baby had been a real challenge, not just because maternity was a difficult thing, but also because being a mother in a situation like the one they were in; that was a huge challenge.

She had needed a long time to get used to her new life, thankfully she wasn’t required for the routes for some months. After she arrived back to Jackson her life had been sort of a rollercoaster.

  
She had to get used to the baby’s schedule, she didn’t have time to work, let alone to go out. It had been a long process for her.

But JJ was getting older, he was still a baby but now that he was growing a little bit, it was about time for her to return to duty.

Thankfully Jesse’s parents were a big support, they offered to look after the baby whenever Dina needed and so that was the chance for her to go back to work.

  
Which in one hand was nice, she hated to be home some many hours, even if she still had chores to do, it was annoying having too much time to think. But in the other hand there was a feeling of discomfort growing inside Dina’s chest.

  
Doing routes wasn’t always a dangerous task, some days it was just a simple routine of checking around, making sure everything was clear and going back. No big, apparently.

  
But somehow, her memories were now crowded with the image of violence. Dina couldn’t help but remember how much danger she had been into in the last years… all that violence and that sense of insecurity.

It was not that she was scared of the task now. She wasn’t, she was ready to fight for her life and JJ's and everything she loved but…

  
All the people she used to love were either dead or gone, it was just her now and her kid; and Dina couldn’t help but think about how terrible it would be for her baby to grow up alone.

  
She was willing to risk her life if the situation required it but lately she wasn’t sure that she should risk it anymore by doing the routes.

  
One small mistake, one small change in the daily routine, and she could be dead, or bitten, or she could end up hurt and not be able to take care of her family anymore.

Just one small second could change everything, and certainly she wasn’t ready to take such a big risk.

  
Now she had a reason to live, her purpose in life was now clear, maybe her chances of happiness were very low or maybe gone after all what happened but JJ had a life ahead, and Dina wanted to be there as long as she could, she didn’t want to give up on her family.

  
So for the last week, even if she knew that she had to return to duty, she had been thinking that she should maybe look for something else to do.

Maybe find a nice job, not one that put her life in danger but a job where she had a schedule, a safe place to be and in which her life wasn’t threatened every second.

  
The decision wasn’t easy though, she had been doing this for a while, and she was good at it, she learned everything she needed and while maybe others were more qualified, Dina was still good at surviving and thinking fast.

She liked to think that thanks to her effort everyone could be safe, it was not all on her of course, but for a very long time, doing the routes, clearing the nearby areas from infected and keeping the outsiders away, made her feel like her life mattered, she had had a purpose and a goal. And now it was all changing.

  
Changes were so difficult.

  
One day she had her life figured out in one way, and now she didn’t.

  
One day she was used to have some people around, and now… they were gone.

  
One day she had a family, a partner… and now…

  
Dina snorted, she grabbed a pair of jeans, a shirt and a black jacket and she slammed the closet door as hard as she could.

  
Changes sucked. She had experienced them throughout her entire life, it was not the first time that she had to learn how to get used to a new situation or how to get used to the hole someone left inside her, but it sucked.

  
As she changed and got ready she couldn’t help but notice how some tears started to fall from her eyes, and she asked herself why was it that she couldn’t be happy.

  
Was it so hard?

  
In movies or books, the protagonists always had a happy ending, even if they suffered, they finally had their happy ever after. Why couldn’t she have that?

  
Maybe happiness was just a movie concept after all, and it wasn’t real. Maybe she was never going to be able to have her happy ending.

  
Dina checked her reflection on the mirror and fixed her jacket and the shirt to remove some wrinkles, she fixed her hair into a bun and then stared at her face.

  
Her eyes were red, a little bit swollen, probably for the lack of sleep and the big amount of hours of crying that she did sometimes.

  
“Jeez” she mumbled as she opened the tap to splash some water in her face. She looked tired, that was for sure, but there was nothing she could do. This was her face now, maybe if life would give her a break sometimes it could be better.

  
A soft knock on the door brought Dina back to reality. And after inhaling deeply to compose herself, she grabbed her stuff and went to check on the visitor.

  
“Morning” Maria said with a smooth voice once the door was opened. She stood there at the porch with her arms crossed over her chest and a small smile.

  
Dina wasn’t really in a mood to return smiles today but she did her best “Hi Maria”

  
“Are you ready?” the woman asked her   
Dina nodded with decision as she closed the door behind her.

“I was about to head to the meeting point”

  
Both women started to walk at a quick pace. There were a few minutes of silence, the only sounds around were their steps and some voices coming from the people passing by them.

  
Jackson was life, walking through its streets and seeing the people walking around, and the kids playing, hearing the music or seeing some of them dancing sometimes was enough to return the faith in survival to anyone.

Having a community was probably the best lifesaver. And Dina was thankful for it, she took a deep breath in, feeling the slight cold air of the morning.

  
“How’s JJ?” Maria asked breaking the silence.

  
“He’s good, he’s with Jesse’s parents today”

  
“It’s so good you have them to help you”

  
“Yeah… they do help, I don’t think I could do everything alone” Dina’s words came out with a certain sadness.

  
“I think you’re really brave for doing this” Maria told her.

  
“Thanks”

  
Brave?

  
Dina didn’t really know if she could describe herself as brave. After all she had been hiding inside the house for many months, trying to run away from her inner battle and avoiding facing her feelings.

She was terrified to lose anything else, just the thought of losing anything or anyone ever again made her feel at the edge of an endless cliff, and it made her want to throw up.

  
She was a mess, her entire world had fallen apart and she was just so scared to look into it again that well… she wouldn’t call herself brave.

  
Maria was being nice to her lately, same as her friends and Jesse’s parents, everyone around her was treating her as if she was going to break, like a fragile thing.

And it was true, she was already broken and fragile. But she didn’t need pity.

  
Having people worrying for her was good, made her feel like at least she wasn’t as lonely as she felt inside, but the last thing she needed now was anyone’s pity.

  
Dina wanted to get her life back in control, maybe not all of a sudden, she had many things to work on first, and she wasn’t ready yet to do so, but a good start could be that everyone could treat her just normal, not like Dina the broken girl, but like... Just Dina.

  
They didn’t speak again, Maria sensed that the girl wasn’t in the best mood and she didn’t want to push, and Dina was thankful for that. They walked in silence until the meeting point where the rest of the group awaited with the horses.

  
“Alright folks, you know the rules” A young, blonde, tall man was standing before the group, his face was serious and her tone steady as he reminded everyone about the tasks.

  
Dina walked towards her horse and pretended to be listening to the instructions. She already knew what to do, she knew the routes perfectly.

  
She sighed deeply as her gaze fell to the ground, she couldn’t do this, she had to, but as she stood there, holding the weapons, the horse, seeing everyone around armed and ready to go, she knew that it had to stop for her, she didn’t want to see anyone else die before her eyes, she didn’t really want to create new bonds with the rest of the group.

Not that she didn’t have friends there, she did. But she was distant, and she didn’t want anyone else now in her life.

  
“So are you ready to go?” the male voice startled her.

  
“Uh… yeah, sure”

  
The blonde man was standing before her, his hands holding the straps of his backpack, her eyes offering a curious look and a polite smile.

  
“So…” he looked at her expectantly  
Dina then realized that everyone else had already left, the gates were open and she was there standing like an idiot.

  
“Sorry I kinda zoned out” she said apologetically.

  
The man laughed “I saw that” then his laughter stopped and he eyed Dina with some concern “is everything okay?”

  
“Yes, just had a weird night that’s all”.

  
The man didn’t ask any further, Dina hopped onto the horse and nudged it to start walking, only to realice after a few minutes that the man was right behind her with his horse.

  
“Are you following me?”

  
The man let out a laughter “Damn you caught me”

  
Dina looked behind, the distance between the two of them was shorted now, until the horses were walking almost side by side.

  
“Really?” she asked.

  
“No” he answered “well technically I’m following you, but that’s just because I’m your partner for this route”.

  
Dina nodded, she didn’t want a partner, but even if she didn’t like the idea, being alone was way too dangerous.

  
“I’ve never seen you before on patrol” Dina said.

  
“That’s because I was in training before, I’ve been helping with small guards and stuff until I got here”.

  
“I see, well I guess that’s good mmm” Dina looked at him confused, what did he say his name was?

  
Apparently the man noticed the confusion “I’m Tyler” he introduced himself.

  
“Dina”

  
“I know” Tyler said.

  
“Am I that popular?” Dina said jokingly.

  
“Well, Maria specifically said to keep an eye on you” Tyler confessed.

  
“Really? So now I have a babysitter?”

  
“Not really, but she was very insistent on that so here I am”.

  
“Fantastic” Dina rolled her eyes “I can take care of myself”.

  
Tyler hummed and shrugged his shoulders “I don’t doubt that, but you know, orders are orders, and mine are to keep you under my sight until we go back”.

  
Dina understood the point, she really did, she was used to do her routes with others and she knew that the point of going with others wasn’t just for the purpose of company but to have protection. But still even if she understood, she was mad.

  
She didn’t need anyone keeping an eye on her, she was fine, she wasn’t a kid. She could take care of herself perfectly.

  
They didn’t really speak anymore.  
Tyler tried to make conversation a couple of times, chatting about random things, Dina answered politely but she didn’t make any efforts to keep the conversation. She wasn’t in the mood.

  
So in the end the small chatter just turned into technical conversation. Only speaking to say that everything was clear, to be careful with the feet, to say that the zone was free of infected. Nothing else.

  
And Dina preferred it that way. The more she went through the route, the more she had clear that this wasn’t for her anymore.

  
Tyler seemed decided, he seemed to enjoy it, which was cool for him. But for Dina this didn’t make sense anymore.

  
The way back home was silent as well.   
“So, we arrived safe and sound” Tyler announced once the gates closed behind them and they both hopped down the horses.

  
Dina scolded “Yeah, we wouldn’t have made it without your incredible protection skills huh?”

  
Tyler let out a laugh, he stucked one of his hands inside the pocket of his jeans and with the other he played with the short hairs of his beard as he approached Dina a bit.

  
“Well I did my job” he said proudly “next time I can just let you get eaten by the infected if you want”.

  
“We didn’t see any today, and I don’t think there’ll be a next time”.

  
Tyler quirked an eyebrow “What do you mean?”

  
Dina was tired, she wanted to arrive home, get JJ and feed him, take a bath and go to sleep. She looked at Tyler and then offered a small smile “Nice to meet you Tyler” she said and started to walk away.

  
“See you around?” she heard him ask. Dina turned around without stopping her steps.

  
“Sure” she said and with that she just kept walking.

  
She left the meeting point behind, but before she could concentrate in her thoughts again, she spotted Maria coming towards her.

  
“How was the coming back?” The older woman asked.

  
“Not very eventful” Dina said “But thanks to you I have a bodyguard now”.

  
Maria laughed “Come on, it’s not that bad, I figured out it would be of help”.

  
“I’m fine, really, I can protect myself”.

  
“I know you can, but it’s good to have some help with us some times”.

  
“I guess, thanks”.

  
Maria was going to say something but before she could speak, Dina did “I’m going to quit”.

  
They both stopped walking and Maria looked at her with a very understanding look, it was almost as if she was awaiting the news.

  
“You made your decision” she said, and Dina nodded.

  
“I need to find a job”.

  
Maria placed a hand on one of Dina’s shoulders tapping on it proudly and smiled “I’m sure you will do good”.

  
Dina was grateful that Maria didn’t try to persuade her. Probably she just understood Dina’s point now, or probably she was just acting politely because she knew Dina was fragile and all of that shit. It was messed up to think like that, specially because Dina hated to feel like others had to be protecting her constantly but at the same time it was better like that.

She could just make the change she needed without resistance.

  
“It’s been a long day” Maria said “I’m sure you could use some rest, and me too, I’ll go home”.

  
“Sure thing, I need to get JJ and sleep”.

  
There were no more words. Maria hugged her shortly and they parted ways.

  
Dina’s thoughts calmed down a little bit once she was home with JJ. He was mumbling unintelligible words and happily eyeing the pages of a cartoon book. Dina observed him with a look of pure love and felt like she was doing the right thing.

  
Later at night, once she was alone in her bed she could cry all she needed, she could just wrap herself between the sheets, bury her face in the pillow and cry until she was out of tears.

  
Not crying out of sadness. It was more like crying because she was lost in a deep sea of changes and deception and she couldn’t really see a way out.

  
In front of JJ she kept her best face, they laughed, she sang him a couple of songs, she prepared dinner and they both ate, they danced to a silly song and then, once the baby fell asleep, Dina put her pajamas, went to her bed and then her emotions came out.

  
She was alone in a big bed, surrounded by darkness, she could hear JJ’s steady breathing coming from his crib across the room, but still she felt so alone.

  
Her tears didn’t take long to appear and she just rolled onto her stomach, burried her face on the pillow like she had planned to before and let her sobbing and panting get muffled by it as she let out all her pain and hurt.

* * *

  
Ellie felt proud of herself, she was sitting, her legs crossed and her back leaning against a tree. She held in one hand her journal and in the other, the pencil, which she moved fast as she filled in with the color the empty areas of the sketch she had drawn.

  
Drawing was a challenge, her hand was still fucked up, it hurt and even the slightest movement felt like hell.

Also drawing with less fingers in one hand was not precisely easy. It had been a while though; by now she was used to how her hand looked.

Getting adapted to it was a bit weird but Ellie didn’t really mind now, it was a shame though, some activities were now either impossible or just too hard for her, but well, she couldn’t do anything about it.

Keeping a track of her journal at first was strange, holding the pencil felt weird for her and it took her some months to be able to get used to it.

  
That’s mostly why she was proud now, her hand was messed up, had less fingers, was swollen and bandaged by the incident from some days ago, but still, her drawing was looking pretty cool.

  
The lines she drew weren’t shaky or inconsistent anymore, she had improved.

  
Ellie felt somehow like she had had to learn how to write and draw all over again.

  
She stopped for a moment and held her journal in front of her, then she removed it from her sight and looked at the image ahead of her.

  
The horse was kinda laying down, his eyes almost closed and he looked so funny. Ellie didn’t remember seeing any horse laying down like that; mostly she just remembered the horses at the tables standing most of the time.

  
The image of the horse like that was so curious for her that she wanted to draw him.  
Ellie finished up some small details with her pencil and then smiled proudly.

  
“There you go” she said, she turned the journal around showing the drawing to the horse.

  
The animal looked at her curiously and then his eyes started closing again.

  
“It’s not a hundred percent accurate but I think I captured your essence. You look younger even” she whispered.

  
Why whisper? Ellie wasn’t used to hear her own voice anymore. She felt somehow like she had to whisper for precaution and as if she needed to be as silent as possible.

  
“Do you like it? I like it”

  
The horse opened his eyes at the sound of Ellie’s voice and took a deep breath in.

  
Ellie put the journal away after some more minutes of staring at her drawing and rested her back and head fully on the tree behind her. She looked up.

  
There were a couple of sunrays peeking through the thick crown of leaves. She could hear the sound of some birds and feel a gentle cold breeze.

  
“We should get going” she announced after a while.

  
Ellie stood up and stretched her body lazily as she yawned. The horse noticed the movement and he stood up quickly.

  
Ellie tucked her belongings on the back of the animal, making sure she didn’t forget anything and then she hopped on it.

  
They didn’t walk at a fast pace, there was no rush today.

  
Ellie had plenty of food, water, and other supplies for a couple of days at least so she didn’t need to hunt or stop to gather anything. 

  
Today it was just one of those lazy days. Just another day where all she did was wonder around.

  
Sometimes though, she did her job, it wasn’t a real job or at least not a typical one.

  
What was she doing? Well, just surviving.

  
Apart from armed idiots with strange ideas and the purpose of killing everyone who didn’t think like them, there were sometimes small groups of people. Wether they lived in city areas or woods in camping zones, Ellie didn’t care.

  
She was good at hunting and finding supplies, and sometimes she dealed with them.

  
It was easy. She gave them food, and they gave her anything that she asked for. She didn’t even need to talk to them or stick around long. It was just a quick exchange.

And for her it was enough.

  
Some weeks she did that, others she just checked around by herself. It had been more than a week since she had spotted any humans or groups though.

  
Now that she remembered, these last few days everything had been so quiet.

  
Maybe it was because of the storm. The rain was heavy and long lasting, accompanied by strong winds and cold temperatures.

  
Probably everyone was hiding until it passed.

  
Ellie entered what seemed to be a small city. The city sign with the name on it was half fallen from its structure and it was covered by vegetation.

  
Everything was green now, there were barely clean streets or walls, all of it was covered by plants or roots.

  
“What do you think about spending the night here huh?” Ellie didn’t expect for any response, but somehow, hearing her own voice as if she was holding a conversation was not that bad.

  
She checked the surroundings; there were no signs of human activity, at least not on first sight.

  
There were some old broken cars on the sides of the road. The buildings looked empty, she didn’t hear grunts or breaking stuff by the infected.

  
All she could see were broken windows, locked doors and some ruins around.

  
“I think we can find a place to stay here” she whispered “I bet you need water and food too… mmm” she made a pause and looked at the horse “I think you should have a name”.

  
Ellie took some minutes to think. They passed some streets, checked almost every corner, Ellie stopped a few times to check inside old vans or destroyed stores but she kept thinking about the name.

  
An hour or so after that, Ellie wasn’t on the horse anymore. She walked ahead of him, her gun ready just in case, and her gaze focused in a very old, and not very tall building.

  
Seemed to have an old garage in one side that had the gate opened so maybe that could be the entrance.

  
Suddenly she stopped and looked behind to face the horse.

  
“What about Raven?” she scanned the horse's face a second “No?” then she looked down bitting her lower lip “Yeah I think it’s crap too”.

  
The building was luckily clear. It was obvious that it had been used by someone else before her but it looked like it had been abandoned for a while.

  
The inside of the garage was dark, and thousand of dust dots were flying around the room, which instantly made Ellie cough a bit.

There was a work bench placed right in the front wall, lots of tools were hanging on the wall, there were some pieces of wood laying around the floor, some metal bars and an old rusty chair.

On the bench, Ellie found some ripped papers, and a sheet that had some notes on it that said something about mesures and sizes. Probably the person who was living there had been building something.

  
Ellie left the horse inside the garage and then found a hole in a near wall that she could use to enter the rest of the building. It was a house.

  
She saw the wooden floor, rotten and filled with holes carved by the time, and stairs that lead to the upper floors but that looked suspiciously weak. Ellie was sure that setting a foot there would mean a terrible catastrophe.

  
She found the kitchen in that same lower floor that she was in now, a pretty and very well equipped kitchen that was now moldy and rusty.

She found some opened food cans and bottles. And as she checked other rooms in that same floor, she saw some sheets laying around the floor with pillows and a very ripped jacket hanging on a door.

  
Whoever was living in there was either dead or gone by now.

  
Ellie went back to the garage, she didn’t feel like sleeping inside of the house, the floors were way too rotten and everything was so dirty that it was a much better idea staying in the garage, she could rest there and then keep going.

  
“What about Blacky?” Ellie said after a while, she was sitting with her back against a wall, her legs crossed and with her right hand she was trying to open a food can that she had from a couple of days ago to eat a bit.

The horse didn’t seem to understand anything but Ellie didn’t care.

  
“Shitty name for a horse… that’s more like I would name a dog” she concluded “Maybe I should just call you horse”

  
She struggled to open the can, she used the other hand to help but it was so painful, she looked at it for a moment. It was red and purple, swollen and the bandages were dirty with dry blood and dirt. “Shit” she mumbled as she forced the knife inside the top of the can and finally managed to open it.

  
“You know, you are the blackest horse I’ve ever seen” she said as she grabbed a piece of sardine from the can and ate it. “Apart from that white stain on your face, you just look so black” she stopped as she chewed some more and then swallowed, it didn’t taste very good, but it was better than nothing.

“It’s like you are a piece of charcoal… a charcoal horse”

  
The horse whinnied softly and Ellie smiled proudly.

  
“That’s it, I’ll call you Charcoal” she ate some more sardines from the can “Charcoal is a good name”.

Hours passed; after having her stomach full, Ellie walked around to make sure everything was still clear. She found two infected randomly walking around and she killed them silently to not get the attention of any possible infected nearby.

  
It was strange in fact, usually in towns like that there were many more infected, sometimes they were all wondering around a certain area, or just scattered around the main roads.

  
But luckily for her, she just saw those two.

After that she went back to the garage, grabbed some water to clean her hands and face and changed her clothes.

She didn’t have many. And the other clothes were already dirty so as she put on another hoodie she thought that it was about time for her to do laundry.

The other pair of pants that she had were covered in mud from the storm, and the hoodie, her shirt and a button shirt she had were all covered either in blood or dirt, or sweat, or just a mix of everything.

Night fell and everything was silent, Ellie was about to close her eyes when she heard something at the distance.

At first it was just a random sound, it could be anything, an animal passing by, the wind, it could even be nothing and her brain was just messing with her.

  
After a few seconds in which she didn’t hear anything else she laid her head back down and closed her eyes.

  
Sleeping now that her body was alert was stupid, she knew she wouldn’t be able. Plus as soon as her eyelids fell shut, all the images started to cross her mind tormenting her.

She could hear screaming, see blood, her own blood, she could see faces that she didn’t want to see anymore and those images just repeated over and over.

It was almost a relief that she heard something again. And this time, it wasn’t her imagination, she heard a loud thud and a clear voice complaining from pain.

  
“What the fuck man are you okay?” she heard someone saying.

  
Ellie didn’t hear a response but she knew she wasn’t alone anymore. Thank God the place she was in wasn’t too exposed so she was sure that she was well covered by now.

  
Taking the horse with her now would be a very stupid idea so she silently grabbed her gun and crawled outside the garage in the direction of the voices.

  
Behind the building, she saw two figures in the dark; for what she could distinguish they were two men, one of them was holding a flashlight pointing to the other one who was on the floor apparently after falling.

  
“That was such a stupid idea” the man holding the flashlight said “someone could hear us, or see us”

  
“Calm down Frank” the man from the floor said while he stood up “There’s no one around”.

  
“Why did you even climb up there?” the man whose name seemed to be Frank asked as he looked to an old bus structure that was laying on the side. “It’s fucking dark now, I don’t think you can see too much”.

  
“I saw enough” the man said “There’s no danger around”.

  
“Let’s go back with the others before you get yourself killed”.

  
Ellie observed them at a distance. At first sight they seemed normal, she couldn’t really see that well since the only light she had was Frank's flashlight, but she couldn’t see that they were carrying weapons, shot guns, guns and one of them had a pretty large knife tucked in his boot.

  
“ _Others?_ ” Ellie thought. Who the hell were those people? Maybe they were just a random group of people living in that city. It was a possibility since sometimes people tried to find a place to stay permanently, or at least try.

  
But there was something about them that she didn’t like.

  
The two men left, they walked away getting lost in the darkness of the night, but Ellie could see the flashlight's light from afar so that was enough to be able to follow.

  
She crawled and run as silent as she could to follow them but not be seen.

  
They didn’t talk much but sometimes she could hear their voices. She tracked them for more than half an hour until they both stopped.

  
Those “others” that they were mentioning were definitely not good news.

  
Ellie couldn’t see well, but she sure could see more than five men sitting around a fire. They didn’t seem dangerous right now but still something about this didn’t seem good.

  
“We're back folks, Drew almost gets himself fucking killed but everything is clear” Ellie heard Frank say.

  
There was some chatter between them and then silence.

  
“We’ll wait for the others to come and then we’ll leave in the morning” someone else said.

  
_“Leave where?_ ” Ellie thought. She didn’t care though. If their intentions were to be gone at the morning it meant that she didn’t need to cross paths with them anymore.

  
It’s not that every human being around was bad but sometimes people’s interests didn’t involve making new friends, so being careful and precautious was crucial.

  
Ellie observed them for a couple of minutes and finally she decided to leave.

  
By the morning they would be gone so it was fine.

  
She took a while to get back to the garage but she found the way and she got surprisingly happy when she saw Charcoal inside resting.

  
“Hey Char, did you miss me?”

  
She approached the horse and ran her hand along his back.

  
Then she went back to lay down but of course, that night she didn’t really sleep.

  
Somehow she was still alert, and tormented by the images of her head. So she just waited for the sun to appear and with the first sunrays she was back on the road.

  
Ellie spent her morning checking that city, luckily for her she found an old pharmacy.

Most of the medicines it had were spoiled, others she didn’t even know what they were but she found some clean bandages under a pile of fallen boxes.

  
There was nothing else to see there.

  
She fought some infected close to the exit of the town, nothing she couldn’t take down on her own, and then she just mounted Charcoal and they both rode for a long time.

  
It was almost noon when Ellie heard the shootings.

  
The sound caught her so out of guard that she almost fell from the horse.

  
“What the fuck?” she said under her breath as she tried to focus and ran a hand through Char's neck to calm him down.

  
“There’s another one” someone yelled.   
Ellie knew she was in trouble. That another one wasn’t her. But the voices were not too far away from her position so if she didn’t do something maybe the next bullet would go on her direction so she needed to run.

  
Hiding Charcoal wasn’t that hard luckily, she was able to place him behind some bushes and trees and then she grabbed her gun and went to see what was going on.

  
She heard screaming, someone asking for mercy and then the sounds of fists and crying.

  
“They don’t have anything else”.

  
Ellie’s skin got goosebumps when she heard a slightly familiar voice. She had heard it the previous night.

  
She approached the sounds of the voices and hiding her body between the vegetation and some rocks she could see the scene.

  
Her stomach twisted in disgust as she saw all the blood, standing there, holding guns and knives there were the same men that she had seen last night, there were three women and a couple of more men that she didn’t know but they were there and they had killed some people.

  
Laying on the floor there was a woman, she had a bullet in her forehead. A man was being held by the man Ellie recognized as Frank and a younger guy. He was covered in blood and Ellie was pretty sure he was dead.

As she scanned the area she could see another three bodies laying around.

  
There was one last person, it was a very young man who was kneeling in front of the one that seemed to be the leader of the group.

  
“We told you we didn’t want trouble” he said.

  
The young man didn’t respond. Ellie observed him and she felt a horrible feeling of rage inside her. There was nothing she could do.

  
She wished she could just go there and shoot everyone to death but it was a stupid idea.

  
Her hand was shit which meant her use of the weapons or in combat was limited for the moment and she was alone. And there were around eight people there, it would be a suicide.

  
She heard the young man say please a couple of times between sobs.  
“You should have helped us” the man holding the gun said. And with that he shot.

  
The sound was strong, it ran through Ellie’s ears and guts and she closed her eyes and covered her mouth with her hands to avoid making any sounds.

  
The body of the young man fell to the ground completely numb, and there was silence for a few minutes after it happened.

  
“Get everything we need guys and let’s move” someone said.

  
Ellie’s breathing was raged, she needed to get out of there.

  
Unfortunately her movements were hard and she stepped on the wrong place because she could hear as some glasses moved under her shoe.

  
“Fuck” she mumbled, she would slap herself if she could.

  
“What the hell was that?” one of the women asked worriedly.

  
“I thought you said there were no more people around” someone else added.

  
That Frank guy grabbed a weapon and looked around “Because there weren’t” he said “Let’s check”.

  
Ellie’s heart started beating fast. She cursed under her breath and she ran as fast as she could. First she tried to run crawling to not reveal her position.

  
“I hear it!” someone yelled.

  
Then Ellie stopped caring about being covered anymore and she just left.

  
Maybe it was her lucky day, or she was just too good at sneaking out but she managed to escape.

  
It took her a long time.

  
Those people weren’t idiots, they separated and looked everywhere, Ellie had to think fast to not cross ways with any of them and after a long time of hearing their voices from afar trying to find her she lost them.

  
It was a relief, she was completely exhausted. Her lungs hurt inside her chest and she had to make big efforts to control her breathing but finally she was safe.

  
Probably those people got tired of looking for her or they just went another way. She didn’t care.

  
But one thing was clear. They weren’t good news.

  
Charcoal was still in the same place she had left him. He was quietly chewing on some grass and Ellie was glad to see him.

  
What was she supposed to do now?

  
She spent the rest of the day and night thinking.

  
And as a new day came, Ellie thought of doing the stupidest thing possible.  
She went back.

  
It was a huge risk, they could still be there even though if they were smart enough, they wouldn’t.

  
But Ellie wanted to understand what was going on.

  
She arrived to the place where she heard the shootings the previous day and she still felt that twist in her stomach.

  
The bodies were still there, there was no sign of any alive people around.

  
“Shit” Ellie mumbled as she nudged one of the bodies with her foot for it to move.

  
She knew that person. Of course it wasn’t a friend or anything, it wasn’t even an acquaintance. But weeks ago she had gotten some pieces of hunt for those people. She remembered.

  
She didn’t know their names or anything, she barely exchanged a few words for them. She just gave them the food and left.

  
Now she wished she knew their names.   
She turned around and ran angrily towards an empty backpack laying on the ground and she kicked it.

  
Why would someone want to kill innocent people?

  
Those persons now dead on the flood didn’t seem bad, they were just a group surviving, just like everybody else. They weren’t even heavily armed.

  
It was so fucked up.

  
On the earth at her feet, Ellie spotted some footmarks.

  
She grabbed her horse. The tracks were still clear so she just followed them.

  
What for? She had no idea. Probably the best thing would be to leave them alone but somehow she wanted to figure out what was going on.

  
She had nothing to loose now. She was alone and risking her life was not a problem for her anymore, she may die by this massive stupidity she was about to do but maybe it could save someone’s life, and that was enough for Ellie to feel like she had a small purpose. At least for the day ahead, she had a task now and she was ready to follow it until the end.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie has a goal now.  
> Dina has a plan.  
> But things never really got as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the support and for reading this. It's not easy to write it but seeing that you like it encourages me to keep going. Hope you enjoy!

There was rain again. Not heavy rain like some days ago but it was endless. One minute it started raining and now two days had passed and there was still the same.

  
Ellie didn’t care though. She had a mission now. The only problem was that: rain meant that the tracks were easily removed in no time, so she had to be fast and smart.

  
She had been following the group of strangers for two days now. At first she thought she lost them. She followed the tracks that disappeared at the edge of a river and she thought her mission ended there but luckily for her she found them again.

  
Those moderfuckers were loud. They didn’t bother covering their trail. Ellie found them again because of the several gunshots she heard again.

  
This time it wasn’t against people. At least not against uninfected people. A horde of infected found them and they fought it before deciding to run away.

  
After that it was simple, Ellie stayed behind cautiously observing every step. She didn’t want to be seen, but she needed to understand.

  
She couldn’t hear their conversations anymore or catch up with any other names besides the ones she already knew. She couldn’t get to a closer distance to observe but luckily she could analyze their steps.

  
They were carrying a wounded person, it was obvious from the amount of bandage envelopes she saw on the way and because at some point, one time that she managed to sneak between some bushes she heard what seemed to be an improvised surgery. She had no idea what they did but she heard someone crying and screaming and others saying to hold him tight.

  
Then after they were gone Ellie found the evidence, a scalpel laying on the floor, some blood spread around, bottles of old whiskey...

  
That was the closest she was to them. After that they didn’t seem to stop anymore. And they walked fast. Ellie lost count of how many cities and small villages they crossed but as the days passed by, one thing was starting to be clear. Those people must be looking for something.

  
Either that or they just loved to walk a lot.  
It’s not that it was weird to see people wonder around. In fact it was very common, not everyone could live in a city these days.

There were emerging cities or some settlements that allowed people to have a safe place to live and have a fairly normal life. But not everyone was lucky to find something like that. 

Many people just traveled to survive, they may not be all friendly but usually they weren’t violent, they were just cautious.

  
But why did this people moved so fast? Why didn’t they camp or try to find places to stay, why did they attack other people and what where they getting from them? Just supplies?

  
She nudged Charcoal to keep walking. It was cold, so cold that Ellie couldn’t help but shiver.

  
It was in moments like this that she missed to have a home. A roof over her head, a warm bed, or a bed whatsoever…

  
Her clothes were wet, and even if she had the hood over her head, that wasn’t enough to avoid the water.  
And apart from that, she was exhausted. Her energies had been concentrated in going after those killers and not in eating properly or resting.

  
It made her angry. She didn’t want to stop, not now that she had found a consistent clue of the others whereabouts. She was pretty sure that they were heading north. And they had many hours of advantage.

  
Soon the night would fall on her, and she didn’t have a place to spend the night and hide and it was extremely dangerous to wonder in the dark but somehow her determination to find those bastards was so strong that she didn’t care.

  
She kept going for hours, hours that seemed an eternity. The rain didn’t stop at all so that encouraged her to focus more than ever, she wasn’t going to let the tracks disappear in front of her. She needed to at least localize where they were headed so she could follow.

  
The only moment when she finally stopped was around midnight. A loud thunder could be heard across the sky, and the rain seemed to become thicker and stronger. Charcoal seemed agitated, so Ellie finally stopped.

  
There were plenty of buildings around, Ellie didn’t really hear anything inside any of them since all she could hear was the rain and the thunders so she took the risk of entering one.

  
After checking that everything was clear she sat down to rest. Her backpack was drenched, and she carefully took everything out to check that nothing got destroyed with the water.

  
Luckily for her, her journal was not completely wet, just the edges. Maybe she should get a plastic bag or something like that to put it in and prevent it from getting wet in the future.

  
She ate some of the food supplies she had and then proceeded to write something down on her journal.

  
Writing there seemed to be the only way to keep her mind sane.

  
After so long without talking to anyone or having anyone around, everything felt strange. And the bad thing was that little by little she was starting to forget who she was.

  
Ellie from the past was gone. That was for sure. All the things she did killed a piece of herself until she was just an empty body walking around. She wasn’t sure if there was much difference between an infected and her. Maybe just the fact that she wasn’t really infected by any spores, but she was the same as them. Wondering around just surviving and nothing much.

  
She missed her life, she missed herself, she missed so many things…

  
Ellie grabbed her pencil, she held it the best way she could with the fingers she had left on her hand and wrote down the first thought that came to her mind:

  
_I don’t know why I follow those bastards around, seems like we move in circles._  
_P.s: Charcoal is afraid of thunders._

  
She smiled as she finished writing and put the journal aside.  
There was nothing else she could do today, just wait.

At some point during the night, Ellie fell asleep. It wasn’t a pleasant sleep, she still saw the same stupid nightmares as every night and of course she woke up abruptly gasping for air desperately.

  
It was day again, no more rain could be heard but instead of being glad about it, Ellie realized that the sun was way too bright which meant it wasn’t early in the morning.  
“Shit, shit” 

  
Picking her stuff, saddling the horse and go back on the road took her less than ten minutes.

  
She slept way too much and maybe now she lost the tracks of the group forever.   
At first she wondered around a bit, she assumed that maybe the others had the same idea as her to hide inside a building, but after some time of fruitless research she just decided to go on.

  
That was it, she definitely lost them.  
She went on and on for hours, following the roads, taking shortcuts through woods, looking for elevated areas to inspect everything, and nothing. They were gone.

  
At some point Ellie and Charcoal stopped to drink, and Ellie sat on the floor defeated as she sipped her water.

  
“This is just pointless” Ellie whispered. “We lost them Char…”

  
What was the point on following them anyway? She was curious, yes. She had a bad feeling about them… but what about it?

  
Probably the best thing was to leave, maybe it was the wisest thing to do, she needed to hunt some more anyways and maybe try to trade some pieces for new clothes.

  
That certainly sounded much better than the idea of chasing a group that was now gone.  
The decision was taken, she would just go.

  
And it was fine, her mind quickly forgot about her mission of persecution and she just focused on thinking what kind of clothes she should look for, more hoodies? She had two… New pants? Maybe she should get shoes.

  
Ellie was walking this time, Charcoal followed her in silence as she tried to figure out her future closet. She stopped suddenly at the sight of something weird.

  
Charcoal didn’t move, so Ellie crawled carefully and moved between destroyed cars until she saw the end of her plans.

  
“You know the orders dude”

  
She heard the voice of again, two men, and she saw them clearly. They were both with their backs turned on her and they were both peeing.

  
“I know, I’m just saying that maybe is not a good idea”

  
Ellie observed quietly, one of the men she couldn’t recognize but the other she did. She was pretty sure his name was Drew, from what she heard some nights ago. Those were the man from the group of travelers.

  
“What orders?” she thought.

  
They didn’t stand there for much longer, luckily for Ellie, the cars covered her so when they turned around they didn’t see her.

  
She saw from afar how they walked away and she followed at the distance careful until the two men reunited with the others.

  
So after all she found them. Maybe it was a sign?

  
Ellie didn’t care about signs.

  
But there was something that made her alarms ring.

  
The group, after talking for a bit and share stupid jokes that Ellie didn’t care about at all started their way again.

  
Ellie was pretty sure that she understood the direction they were headed to, and she didn’t like it at all.

  
She had kinda lost her sense of space in the last months, not because she wasn’t able to use her sense of orientation but because she had moved so much between cities and villages that she barely paid attention to where she was anymore.

  
But now….

  
“They’re headed to Jackson” she let out with a worried tone, that wasn’t said as a whisper and it came with a shaky raspy voice.

  
Of course they may not be going to Jackson, as in the town, but that direction… she hadn’t gone in that direction in a long time…

  
That’s why she remembered.

  
She visited many places, she went in all directions possible, all except for that one.

  
Ellie didn’t want to set a foot in Jackson.

  
Maybe it was a stupid thought, there wasn’t just Jackson in that direction, there were many other places in the middle that they could stop in, many ways that they could take to go somewhere else.

  
It was okay.  
But still Ellie felt that shiver in her spine.  
She was decided… she followed them.

* * *

Dina watched as the rain drops splashed against the window and slided down. She was sitting on an armchair that was placed close to the window in her living room.   
JJ was sleeping in the room, which was a relief, because with the thunders that sounded from time to time he would probably be scared as hell screaming and crying.

  
JJ didn’t like thunders.

  
Dina in the other hand felt pretty content with the sound. There was something magical about the rainy days that she loved so much.  
The sky was tainted with different shades of grey, the smell of wet earth was awesome, and watching the water falling was just so nice.

  
She was just enjoying the moment of silence, hearing only the water, enjoying the warmth of her home and just like that, Dina felt cold.

  
Two days it had been raining, it didn’t stop, she spent those days at home with her son.  
She didn’t have patrol anymore, so she was in the process of thinking what to do now. Which was the next step for her.

  
But it was okay, she thought of it as a way of having more quality time with JJ, so that was a win.

  
She was content, kinda. Her life was certainly complicated now but what could she do? She needed to accept it. And it wasn’t that bad.  
But the rain brought her emotional side outside and once again, same as in the past days, she found herself crying alone.

  
“Fuck it” she said as she wiped her tears angrily.

  
Why was she even crying now?  
Sadness? Fury? Pain?

  
Maybe it was a mix of everything. Maybe it was the stupid memories that came to her brain constantly making her feel weak and vulnerable again.

  
Memories of past days where she was, like now, watching the rain fall, but not alone. In those memories she remembered soft arms wrapped around her waist protectively from behind, her back resting against a warm chest and the feeling that it came with that, she felt like home.

  
But that was just a memory.

  
Dina tried as much as she could not to mention the name. It hurt to even think about it, but for that brief second in which she remembered that scene, Ellie’s name just sneaked past her barriers and rang inside her brain very hard.

  
And that was unacceptable.

  
She didn’t get to be present in her life anymore, not even as a thought. Dina didn’t have time for bullshit anymore. She was growing up for fuck's sake.

  
Dina wished she had a button to just turn off her thoughts and be able to control what came to her mind.

  
But she didn’t, and somehow she fell asleep in that armchair completely submerged in memories.

  
Waking up though, that wasn’t a very pleasant feeling.   
When Dina woke, it was because she heard JJ crying. At first she felt disoriented. She opened her eyes and noticed the light of the sun hitting directly on her eyes, which made her grunt and mumble unintelligible words until she finally managed to wake her brain.

  
She moved slowly to stand up and felt a heavy pain on her back.

  
“I’m so old… jeez” she said as she stood up stretching her sore back and her arms.

  
That morning she felt so proud of herself. She took care of JJ, taking him out of the crib, changing him, she did breakfast for both, played with JJ and read him some stories and then managed to clean the house a bit while she was keeping an eye on him.

  
By the time she finished her tasks she stood up in the center of the living room and smiled.

“That’s a point for super mama” she thought.

  
JJ was sitting in the corner of the living room, he had a colorful small carpet there and some toys so as Dina was busy doing stuff around, he was entertained there.

  
Dina eyed him and her smile grew bigger. But a moment later her smile faded.  
She was not going to let her stupid thoughts bring her down though.

  
“Okay JJ, let’s get you ready” she announced “You’re going to visit grandma”.

  
JJ looked at her curiously and smiled.

  
Dina changed him, then she changed as well and left the house.

  
Jackson smelled like wet earth that morning, mixed with the soft smell of grass. Dina took a deep breath in as she left the house and closed her eyes for a second to enjoy the aroma.

  
It was a stupid thing, but she loved it, it was a small detail that somehow made her feel better.

  
She walked out her front yard with a content smile as she held JJ in her arms.

  
Jesse’s parents were lifesavers.  
Dina remembered very clearly how she felt the day Ellie left.

  
She remembered staying all night up crying angrily and feeling that sharp pain in her chest that seemed like it would suck the life out of her.

  
And then, there was the silence.   
That morning after crying all night, Dina came to the realization that she was alone now, and it was for real.

  
Her dreams of living peacefully in a farm and having her family little by little got destroyed.

  
She couldn’t do this alone.

  
She couldn’t take care of the animals and take care of JJ, take care of herself and of the house at the same time all by herself.

  
No matter how hard she tried, staying in that house was a torment…. just being awake those days was a torment.

  
Suddenly being alone became her biggest fear.

  
Not being alone physically. Being alone with her baby, with her house, being so young…

  
She went back to Jackson because she couldn’t stand the idea of being alone with everything and she didn’t want to remember Ellie in every corner.

  
At least in Jackson she could hear the life of the town outside every day, and even at nights. Even if she was living by herself now, she knew that there were people around her and that somehow made her feel safer.

  
And thank God Jesse’s parents were willing to help with everything, that was such a big relief.

  
She stayed with them the first weeks after coming back. They offered her and the baby a room and that was such a big help.

  
Jesse’s mother even told her to stay for as long as she wanted, she could had even stayed there permanently.

  
Dina had considered that option but she didn’t want to intrude. So once she found the house, she moved out.

  
But still JJ's grandparents were a huge help.  
And so in days like this, where she had to run errands and some stuff, she just left JJ with them and she could do everything faster.

  
Jesse’s mom was the one to open the door, she was still dressed in her pajamas and her face lit up once she saw the baby.  
Dina handed him to her and smiled when she saw JJ laughing and hugging his grandma.

  
“Are you sure you don’t want to come in?” the woman asked to Dina “I’m making something for lunch, I can make something for you too”

“Thanks, that’s so sweet… but I already ate before”

  
That was a lie. Dina hadn’t eaten anything, she did eat a small bite for breakfast, it was easier for JJ to eat if he saw her eating as well. But apart from that, she wasn’t hungry.  
Her stomach was closed.

  
Jesse’s mom didn’t insist, and after entering the house and closing the door, Din sighed deeply and walked away.

  
She tucked her hands inside the pockets of her jacket as she walked.  
Jackson exhaled life, that was one of the things that Dina had always loved so much about it.

  
There were people around, she could hear the chatters from several people as she passed by, she could hear laughter and even some screaming apparently coming from an angry mother calling for her children.

  
Some kids ran happily around, accidentally bumping into Dina and then they left laughing.

  
Dina smiled.

  
She looked into the kids direction and shook her head. JJ was now a baby but in just a few years he’d be just a kid like the ones she just saw. He would probably go out to the park with his friends and would be running around laughing…

  
Dina wondered how he would look, she imagined him speaking to her, telling her about his day or about his friends. Maybe one day he would even tell her about meeting his first love.

  
“Nope” Dina thought as she resumed her walking.

  
She didn’t want to think about that now. And as selfish as it sounded, she didn’t her son involved with love relationships from a young age.

  
Dina felt terrible thinking that but what could she say? Love had broken her apart. She wanted JJ to experiment it of course, he deserved to be happy, but Dina didn’t even want to imagine to see him with a broken heart.

  
Just like she had a broken heart now, she knew the sensation so well that she didn’t want anything like that for JJ.

  
“Look who I found here”

  
Dina suddenly was pulled out from her thoughts, she had been looking at her feet as she walked, so she looked up startled only to see a blonde man walking towards her.

  
“Tyler… hey” she said uncomfortably.

  
“I see someone’s not very happy to see me” the man said.

  
There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment, Dina looked at him not really knowing what else to say, she was still surprised by the interruption.

  
“No it’s not that I was just…” her words died in her mouth as she struggled to finish her sentence.

  
Tyler scanned her and laughed “Just walking around?”

  
“Yeah, something like that”.

  
Dina still had to go get some groceries, and check where she could apply to start working, but it felt way too much to tell.

  
Tyler nodded in understanding and shrugged his shoulders softly.

  
Afraid of another uncomfortable silence Dina just spoke again “What about you huh? Were you still following me?”

  
“Wow” Tyler pretended to sound offended “That was a low punch… and even if it’s hard to believe I wasn’t following you, I just saw you casually”.

  
Dina nodded and they both laughed awkwardly.

  
“I am just doing some errands for my father” Tyler said.

  
“That’s good”  
Dina was going to say goodbye and keep walking but Tyler was faster.

  
“So you’re not coming back?” he asked “Haven’t seen your name on the assignments lists anymore”.

  
Dina scratched the back of her neck softly and looked down.

  
“Uh… well I just felt like I needed a change”.

  
“I understand” Tyler said “I just wanted to apologise, I mean…”

  
“It’s okay, Tyler. You were doing you’re job, I get it”.

  
Tyler seemed to be relieved with the answer.

  
“Okay” he mumbled “I need to go now” he said after a moment “I don’t want to be late”.

  
“Yeah, I have to go too” Dina said.

  
“See you around?” Tyler asked.

  
Dina shrugged her shoulders “Yeah, sure” she said.

  
Tyler nodded and left. Dina looked in his direction for a second to see him walking away and then sighed.

  
Man why was everything so strange for her lately.

  
She knew the town well, she had tons of friends around, she wasn’t a stranger there and still… she felt so out of place.

  
A task as simple as going to get food to the market became a weird journey in which she felt uncomfortable under everyone’s eyes and just felt extremely anxious.

  
Dina knew that it wasn’t true, she knew no one would probably give a fuck about what she was doing but it felt as if somehow whith every step she was taking, the stares of everyone were there to judge her.

  
And it was exhausting.

  
She focused her gaze once again on her feet and tried to ignore the inner turmoil of her brain.

  
Luckily for her she didn’t take as long as she thought.

  
And she basically run home desperate to be out of everyone’s sight.

  
Why?

  
Every single person she ran into today, asked her how was she doing.

  
Because it was not just Tyler that she saw, she some some old friends, acquaintances… they were all asking the same damn question.

And Dina was sick of giving the same answer to everyone.

  
“I’m good, thanks” that’s all she said. And she wasn’t good, at least not like everyone expected her to be. She was such a broken mess inside that it was ridiculous.

  
As soon as she entered the house, Dina closed the door behind her and rested her back against it as she sighed in relief.

  
The good news were that probably soon she would have a job, and that was a very good thing.

  
It was part of her plan after all, having a good, safe job so her life wouldn’t be in danger constantly and keep moving forward with her life, meaning: focusing on new projects, maybe redecorate her house, having time for herself, time with her son, and maybe going out with friends again. Maybe that last part could wait a little longer.

  
Dina had to go pick up the baby and bring him home but she took a moment.  
She slowly slided her back against the door until she sat on the floor and then with her hands she covered her face scratching it softly.

  
What a fucking rollercoaster this moving forward thing was…

  
It was so unfair, so unfair to have her life so messed up now and all of it just because of someone else’s decision.

  
That was the thing that killed her the most. It hadn’t even been her decision. She didn’t chose any of this; Dina had always been ready to fight for what she loved, she was willing to do any sacrifice needed for the sake of her loved ones, even put herself in the last place of her own priorities.

  
And just because someone wasn’t able to do that and just abandoned her, now her entire life was torn and upside down.

  
It was so fucking unfair.

  
But that’s how things were, she couldn’t change what happened, that’s why it was so important for her to stick to her plan.

  
And maybe it was like Maria said, time would heal her and one day she would wake up in the morning and she wouldn’t feel that empty hole inside her chest.

* * *

Two more days. Two days had passed already since Ellie decided to keep tracking the travellers. And two days that she had been regretting it deeply.

  
Why did she regret it?

  
Well, she barely had water now, she had only a few food supplies left and man, she was tired. She was so tired.

  
Seemed like those bastards never stopped.  
They camped every night of course, but they moved fast, they started every morning with the first sunrays and barely did a few stops during the day.

  
What the hell where they looking for?

  
Ellie didn’t care, she definitely didn’t like them, but she didn’t give a damn about what they wanted to do.

  
Her only concern was that if they kept attacking people on the way, someone had to stop them. They couldn’t just kill everyone around. Specially if they were headed to Jackson now.

  
It didn’t matter if they entered the town, or if their purpose was to find it or even if they didn’t know of their existence yet, she felt somehow like she needed to make sure that everything was okay.

  
She would just check that nothing happened and then she’d disappear again.

  
It was around midday when she finally dismounted the horse and stretched her body as she grunted.

  
“That’s it Char” she mumbled “I don’t care if those bastards keep going. We deserve a break”.

  
They had been all day moving, and Charcoal seemed tired; Ellie was definitely tired and extremely thirsty.

  
She wanted to keep doing her mission but it wouldn’t really be of any use if she was dehydrated or dead of exhaustion.

  
One thing Ellie had that sometimes was good and sometimes it was just annoying it was that she was stubborn as hell, she was decided, once she had a goal she just went for it.

  
That’s why she was so focused right now. It had been a very long time since she had a goal, or at least a goal that lasted more than one day.

  
And precisely that’s why she needed to be wise now. If she was going to do this for some more days, she needed to be well prepared.

  
She walked for a few minutes as she moved her arms in circles and massaged her neck softly, then she sat down with her backpack between her legs to check what she had.

  
She still had some canned food, and a package of crackers that she was pretty sure that was very smashed, but it was okay.

  
She put her stuff out quickly and thought about what was best to do.  
Should she hunt some pieces now? The cans were good but she didn’t want to use them all just yet, they could be of much better use for an emergency situation.

  
Her hand was kinda better, although not perfect. She could grab things now without dying of pain, and she could move it a little bit more, but it still felt sore and a bit swollen. The knuckles area was a bit purple but not as much as before.

  
She could have more mobility now which was a good thing, hunting could be an option. She could get some pieces, get water, and then keep going.

  
It definitely sounded like a good plan.  
And so she did.

  
Charcoal awaited patiently eating grass in a secluded area far away from the road.   
Ellie didn’t want to let him too exposed if she wasn’t going to be around.

  
She took her time to prepare some traps and to find a good spot to wait and attack.

  
The first attempt was a total failure.

  
Something did fall in her trap but it wasn’t an animal. It was a damn infected who was screaming like a pig trying to escape, and the screaming intensified when he saw Ellie approaching.

  
Luckily for her, she didn’t need to use the gun. She needed to save the bullets so she ran toward the creature and stabbed him in the neck until the screaming stopped.

  
“I hope you didn’t get the attention of any of your friends” Ellie whispered as she took her gun out and looked around.

  
Thank God it seemed like that was the only infected around, Ellie didn’t want to waste her time today fighting.

  
Once the area was cleared, she finally went back to her task.

  
She got two small rabbits that needed to be cleaned and prepared to be eaten.

  
There was no way she would eat two rabbits at once. Probably not even one. But she had learned how to preserve the meat so it lasted a couple of days at least.

  
Ellie found a nice place to sit, under a huge old tree, and she prepared the meat. Then she put the pieces she cut inside a box that she had with salt in it and then went back to find Charcoal to put the box inside one of the bags he was carrying.

  
Now she just needed water and then she was ready to keep going.  
Finding a river wasn’t that hard. The reigning silence of the ambient was a huge advantage for this. She just had to listen carefully and as she walked, she could hear the water running.

  
Ellie wasn’t aware of how thirsty she was until she actually saw the river and her mouth felt extremely dry.

  
She looked around first and then ran quickly to kneel in front of the water and started drinking as if there was no tomorrow.

  
The cold liquid felt like heaven in her mouth. She drank desperately and then proceeded to refill her bottles.

  
Now she was all good to keep going.  
But before leaving, she did something that she hadn’t done in a long time.

Ellie was still kneeling there; after filling the bottles she washed her face and her neck which made her feel very relieved and then she stared at the water's surface…

  
The water was still agitated from her movements before but once it calmed down a little bit, her reflection appeared.

  
And Ellie felt disgusted by the sight.

  
Who the hell was that girl in front of her?

  
She inspected the face reflecting on the water and as much as she tried, she couldn’t find any resemblances to the Ellie she knew.

  
It was as if not only she bad forgotten who she was but she also forgot how she used to look like.

  
She could see an extremely pale skin, reddish eyes with purple bags underneath. A furrowed brow that created a deep wrinkle in her forehead and lifeless eyes that just seemed like two black holes lacking of any kind of sparkle.

  
It was like staring at a ghost.

  
That made Ellie feel extremely cold for a moment. Her stomach tightened and she felt a slight cold air blowing in her spine.

  
How did she become into this?

  
Everything went from being okay to being so extremely fucked up that she just looked dead now.

  
She smashed the water’s surface with her fist, angrily. She didn’t like what she was seeing, but she knew there was nothing she could do so fuck it.

  
There was no need to look at her reflection anyways, it’s not like she cared about her appearance anymore.

  
Like the rest of the things in her life now, she just needed to accept it and move on.

  
Ellie was about to leave, she had everything she needed, so the best thing was to go back and resume the journey.

  
But as soon as she stood up she felt like something was wrong.

  
She heard a scream, and then gunshots at the distance. And she froze in place.

  
After a second of panic, Ellie started running trying to find the direction of the noises.   
They sounded a bit far away but the more she run, the closer she could hear it.

  
“Are you crazy! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

  
Ellie heard a man yelling at the distance and some crying coming from what seemed to be a woman.

  
She couldn’t find the source of the sound so she climbed a tree as fast as she could and looked around to see what she could find.   
And she saw them.

  
It was not the entire group, there were three man.   
One was bleeding profusely on his stomach, he was laying on the ground with his hands covering his wound.

  
The other man was holding a gun, screaming nervously and wiping the sweat from his forehead and the other was hovering over a woman who was lying on the grass.

  
Her shirt had been ripped and she was crying.

  
“Dude let’s just go!” said the man holding the gun.

  
The other man didn’t seem to be listening, he was focused on the woman.

  
Ellie watched horrified as the man ran his hands along the woman’s chest.  
“Fuck” she said.

  
That man wasn’t going to stop. And damn, she froze in place when she saw that there was a kid there as well. It was a boy, who was bleeding on his head and looking with watery eyes the scene.

  
Ellie observed him, black hair, white skin, black eyes… she got flashes for a moment of her baby…

  
Technically it was never hers but still, it was like her own at some point. She swallowed a lump in her throat and bite her lip nervously.

  
The man on the floor was dying, no matter how much he wanted to try to get up, the amount of blood he was loosing and the velocity of it flowing out his body was going to kill him soon. The pain and fear in his face was so hard to see. And the kid looked shocked, he was just standing there, probably feeling so scared that he couldn’t move.

  
Ellie didn’t think about it twice.  
She grabbed her gun and without hesitating she shot.

  
The bullet traveled fast, so fast that no one had time to react.

  
In less than a second everyone just fell silent, the only audible sound was the gunshot and it quickly disappeared leaving a very tense silence in which everyone just seemed shocked.

  
And in the next second, before anyone had time to move, the man hovering over the woman fell to the floor completely dead.

  
“Steve?” The man holding the gun said terrified. He repeated the name several times, each time raising the tone of his voice a bit. He ran towards the dead man and then looked around confused.

  
Ellie didn’t wait, she jumped out of the tree with decision and ran as fast as she could.   
The man saw her and grabbed his gun again but before he could point at her, Ellie’s body collided against him making him fall on his back. The gun flew away and Ellie fell rolling on the grass.

  
Everything happened fast. She tried to get up quickly, the woman was crying as she crawled towards the kid, Ellie kicked the man in the stomach hard and then turned around to look at the kid and her mother “Leave!” she said.

  
The woman looked at her sobbing hard, then she looked at the man with the shot in the stomach and it seemed like she wanted to run towards him but Ellie yelled at her again “leave!”

  
The guy who Ellie ran into got up suddenly and punched her in the face so hard that for a moment Ellie saw black.

  
“You whore!” he screamed.

  
Ellie managed to see from the corner of her eye that the kid and the woman finally left.   
But she was still in big trouble.

  
Her head hurt, and before she could recover, another punch straight to her stomach made her lose her balance.

  
She didn’t fall, luckily for her, she just felt so strange for a second that she almost fell down but she wasn’t about to get killed by an idiot.

  
Ellie pushed him back and she quickly grabbed her knife and stabbed it into the man’s arm.

  
His scream was raw and deep and Ellie knew this was done. She had her chance, but before she could finish it she heard other voices approaching, rushed steps behind the bushes and the sound of guns being charged.

  
She panicked, if the rest of the group saw her she was screwed. And that couldn’t happen.

  
She hit the man with the back of the knife in the head leaving him unconscious and then she started running as fast as her legs allowed her.

  
They were after her now.

  
She didn’t need to look behind to know it, she heard the voices screaming at her and saying the others to go after her. She heard some bullets going in her direction and she heard people running.

  
Her lungs burnt inside her chest; her breathing was so raged that it made her nostrils and throat feel on fire. She needed to run faster, but at the same time her legs were asking her to stop.

  
But stopping would mean to get killed.

  
Would it be so bad to die thought?

  
Ellie had been in autopilot for a long time now, just wondering around and doing nothing but surviving. She knew her chances of getting her real life back were gone and that she was tired of feeling so empty.

  
Maybe dying wasn’t such a bad idea. Maybe it was what was meant to be.

  
Her speed suddenly started to slow down as she thought this. She could hear the people approaching more and more and she was about to get her gun out and just risk everything... when she fell.

  
She was so focused on her thoughts that she never saw the start of the cliff.

  
The voices, the rushed steps, and the gunshots suddenly stopped and the only thing she could hear was the sound of her own body colliding with the floor as she rolled down the hill.

  
It seemed like an eternity. There was nothing she could grab to hold herself, she had been running so fast that now she was just rolling down like a rock, at a very high speed.

  
She could feel tons of stones and branches getting stuck in her skin, she could feel her ribs cracking inside of her and after a moment she started to taste blood.

  
After that, luckily for her, she just didn’t feel anything else anymore. Everything stopped.  
The lights just turned off and everything went silent once again. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie is lost, and hurt. Things seem to be getting complicated. And just when they didn't expect it, both Ellie and Dina recieve a surprising visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait. Here's a new chapter for you to enjoy, and there'll be another one soon. Have fun.

Ellie didn’t know where she was. 

There was absolute silence around her, she seemed to be standing in a room, but she had no idea how she arrived there.

  
She looked around confused, and on the center of the room she spotted a metal chair with a guitar case next to it.

  
She smiled. It had been ages since she last played. She couldn’t really play very well anymore, anyways.

  
But still, she walked towards the chair with excitement.

  
It felt so nice to grab a guitar once again, the instrument felt like it was new, it was a beautiful black guitar and for her surprise, once she sat down and ran her fingers over the strings, it was tunned.

  
It was strange not knowing how she got there, or why there was a guitar, but those details didn’t seem to matter at all.

  
Ellie got ready to play and she played the first chord almost instantly without even thinking.

  
The sound was bright and extremely pleasant, it sounded beautiful and damn, she had missed that so bad…

  
But then, before doing any other chord, she looked at her hand and her mouth hung open in surprise.

  
She had all of her fingers back...  
She had five fingers again.

  
And not only that but her hand wasn’t swollen anymore; it didn’t look purple or bloody or anything. It just looked like a hand.

  
She retrieved the hand from the instrument and held it closer to her face to inspect it. She held out both of her hands and…

  
She only noticed that she was crying when she felt a tear falling on her arm.  
Ellie couldn’t believe that all of her fingers were back in place, she felt overwhelmed for a second.

  
“Aren’t you going to play?”   
That voice…

  
Ellie looked up startled, with a mix of emotions inside her chest. She hadn’t heard that voice in so long that it seemed surreal now. 

  
Joel.

  
Ellie smiled, the tears were now descending freely down her cheeks, but she was smiling brightly.

  
There he was, Joel. Standing across the room, with his back leaned against the wall and his arms crossed over his chest.

  
He smiled at her.

  
Ellie wanted to run towards him, she wanted to hug him tightly and feel his arms around her protectively… but she couldn’t.

  
She couldn’t move.

  
But just seeing him there felt so fucking nice.  
“You’re here” she exhaled.

  
Joel laughed and nodded “Did you miss me?” he asked.

  
Ellie wiped the tears with her hands and nodded.

  
She had so many things she wanted to say… there were so many words she needed Joel to hear, but she couldn’t speak. Everything was stuck in her chest and the only thing she could do was stay there and cry.

  
“Why don’t you play something for me?” Joel asked “I haven’t heard you in a while”.

  
Ellie’s hands were shaky, but she didn’t care.  
She repeated that first chord and ran her fingers over the strings creating a soft melody.

  
Joel looked at her proudly, his eyes were not showing signs of tiredness or age anymore, he looked younger and happy.

  
The music filled the room. Ellie didn’t sing, she just hummed the melody quietly and couldn’t help but smile when she heard Joel humming along.

  
She felt so good now.  
She had no idea what was happening now, but she knew something: she wanted the song to last forever.

  
And it certainly seemed like an eternity. It sounded magical, and seeing Joel standing there felt like a dream.

  
How many times had she wished to be able to restart everything? To go back in time and change the events. Change the fact that the last thing she did with Joel was being mad at him. Change the fact that she couldn’t save him…

  
But now here he was, they were together in the same room again.  
And seeing him made her remember how much she actually cared about him… it made her remember who they used to be one time.

  
The song came to an end. Ellie didn’t want it to finish because she wanted that moment to last forever but it couldn’t.

  
The guitar's sound slowly ended as the last chord died in the air and there was silence after that.

  
Ellie looked into Joel’s eyes and even if he was smiling tenderly at her, she had a serious expression.

  
“Am I dead?” Ellie asked  
Sounded like a stupid question, but well, Joel was dead, and now they were both in the same room.

  
Joel shrugged his shoulders and took a deep breath in “I don’t know. Do you think you are dead?”

  
Ellie was silent for a couple of minutes.  
“I don’t know” she said in the end “I want to be dead… but I don’t know anymore”.

  
Joel smiled and raised his arms nonchalantly “Why would you want to be dead?” he asked.  
Ellie looked down and played with her fingers nervously.

  
“Everything is so messed up” she managed to say as she fought her tears. “Everything just fell apart”.

  
“Since when do you give up so easily?” Joel asked her with a sad tone.

  
“I’m not giving up… I just… you are not here anymore, I tried so hard to keep going and to get my shit together”.

  
Ellie swallowed a lump in her throat and wiped her tears softly “I’m so tired”.

  
Joel took a few steps in her direction and looked at her tenderly.  
“You’re a tough one, Ellie. I don’t think I ever met someone as stubborn as you in my entire life” he said as he kept walking until he was right in front of her.

  
Ellie was speechless, she just felt so weak and so tired all of a sudden that no words came out.

  
“You need to keep fighting, kiddo” Joel said.

  
“I don’t know if I can”

  
Joel ran his hand through Ellie’s cheek softly and tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear. “I know you can”.

  
Ellie closed her eyes at the touch.   
She never got her chance to properly say goodbye. She never said all she wanted to say. There was supposed to be more time. She was trying her best to forgive him, and it hurt so much to know that there was no time anymore.

  
Their last moments together were with Ellie being mad at him. And even if she was trying get over that… now she could just think of how much of a waste of time it was to be mad. She lost so many moments that now were never coming back.

  
That’s what hurt her the most; part of the rage that she had inside her guts, that led her to that spiral of hate and pain came from the guilt she felt.

  
“I wish you were still with me…” she whispered.

  
Her eyes were still closed, and the warmth of Joel’s hand was still lingering on her cheek. 

  
“Me too, kiddo. Me too”  
Joel’s voice sounded like an echo, it resounded through all the room and through her chest. And it slowly faded away.

  
Then Ellie just felt cold again.  
She opened her eyes slowly, only to find that Joel was gone. She was still sitting there, holding the guitar, but now she was alone.  
And it hurt so bad.

  
She closed her eyes tightly and opened them again hoping that he would appear in front of her, but nothing happened. She threw the guitar away and kept closing and opening her eyes until they started to hurt.  
“Come back!” she screamed.

  
Her eyes closed one more time, but this time, when she opened them again, everything turned black.

  
No chair anymore, no guitar, no room. Just a black hole that she was floating in.

  
Then she heard voices at the distance.   
At first Ellie was way too tired to go look for them. She felt exhausted, and floating just felt so well…

  
But the voices became louder and louder; and suddenly, she started to perceive a bright light.

  
It felt extremely uncomfortable, finally she became aware of her body, although she didn’t feel anything.

  
But her eyes started opening. Her eyelids were extremely heavy and she could barely keep them open for a second.

  
Then she felt as if someone was shaking her and slapping her softly on the cheek.  
“Come on girl, come on” she heard.

  
The words sounded so far away, almost as if she was behind a wall hearing someone talking. But she knew they were talking to her.

  
Her eyes opened a bit more and she grunted weakly as her body reacted a little bit.

  
“Hey! Guys, she’s alive” someone said.

  
Alive?

  
_“Am I alive?”_ she thought.

  
She felt like she was being lifted, and someone was giving the order to be careful to… Ellie had no idea who.

  
But as her body was being picked up, her first impulse was to try to move.  
“No, no” someone said as they touched her arm. “Stay with us”

  
Stay with us. That’s the last thing she heard. She fought with all her strength to keep her eyes opened, but the movement of her body provoked her to feel an extremely sharp pain that ran through her spine all the way to her brain.  
And with that, she went back to the dark hole again.

* * *

It was an amazing day. One of those rare days where everything just turns out the way you expect to.

  
And for Dina, this was just so exciting.  
She couldn’t remember when the last time she felt like this was. It had been so long since she felt hopeful and truly excited.  
It almost seemed like a dream. Only it wasn’t one.

  
For once, it was real. Her plan was going like she wanted.  
First of all she had managed to take care of her son like a professional mother. She made him sleep early, made him breakfast, did the house chores, and all that without the baby crying or throwing a tantrum, not even once.

  
Probably it seemed stupid, since of course many other moms did it, it wasn’t as if she was special. But she was alone.

  
She was alone and still she was managing to do all by herself.

  
And that felt so incredibly good.  
Besides that, finally, after days of research, she had a job.

  
Surely, it wouldn’t be as exciting as going on patrol. But it guaranteed her safety at least. Plus, Dina thought that working at the diner should not be boring.

  
She had applied there a few days ago. She wasn’t a big fan of Seth, but the man seemed to really regret the past events, since he already apologized in the past many times and did it again when Dina went for the job interview.

  
And well, even if his regret wasn’t real. Dina didn’t care, it’s not as if she was going there to make friends.

  
She had a job finally. She had a goal now, taking care of JJ was, of course, her first priority, but knowing that she was starting to do things on her own, made her feel proud.

And finding a job on her own felt like it was a very important achievement in her life. At least it was better than staying home all day.

  
Dina was sick of thinking all day non stop. It was exhausting, and it was what was keeping her so down lately.

  
She was doing a huge effort to get her shit together, and most of the time it worked, but having so much time for herself just made her mind go to dangerous places.

  
So having a job, would mean having her brain occupied, having a goal everyday and the first part of her plan already conquered.

  
After stepping out the dinner, and being reminded that she was expected there tomorrow at first hour; Dina walked outside with a huge smile on her face.

  
She walked down the road with her head and her gaze up, not looking at her feet like she usually did. Dina took a deep breath in and it felt like all the air of the world entered her lungs.

  
It felt like flying.

  
After all the shit she had been through, receiving good news just felt so fucking good. Finally a little light in all the darkness that surrounded her.

  
On her way home, she stopped to get some groceries. She was in a good mood and even some acquaintances she saw around stopped to tell her that she looked radiant.

  
She definitely felt radiant, for the first time in ages. She didn’t feel, at least for that moment, like she was carrying the weight of the world in her shoulders anymore, it felt like she was being relieved.

  
Dina walked around, carrying her bag of groceries, she stopped a few times to check around. She saw the park and stood there for a couple of minutes watching the kids play. She stopped nearby the stables and saw from afar how some horses were being brushed and cleaned.

  
She thought about the patrols, probably the teams would already be on their way to do their assigned routes, they’d be halfway their route by now. She was going to miss it kinda, but it was okay.

  
The guy brushing brushing one of the horses recognized her at the distance and waved at her as he smiled nicely.  
Dina waved back.

  
“Did you change your mind and you’re coming back?” he asked.

  
“I don’t think so” Dina responded as she shrugged her shoulders “I’ll let you know if I change my mind”.

  
They guy nodded and continued his job.  
Maybe one day things would be more settled for Dina. Maybe one day, JJ wouldn’t need her around all the time, maybe one day she wouldn’t need to keep her mind busy all day to avoid thinking too much, maybe one day she would grow up and wouldn’t be alone anymore, who knew. Maybe then, she would be able to go back.

  
Until then, she had made her decision.  
It was a hard decision to make, but it felt so good to think that she was thinking of her future now.

  
Because that was a really big word… future.  
And it was the thing that she was terrified of the most. Future was uncertain; she knew very well.

  
Dina had overcome situations that would have drained anyone’s hopes, she had overcome shits that would make anyone want to give up.

  
And there were many people who actually gave up. She had seen so many hopeless people during her life, people who just awaited death like it was the only certain thing in life. And even if that was actually true. Dina didn’t just want to give up yet.

  
Future was scary now because she didn’t really have anyone to rely on. Of course she had friends, she had people around, but it was not the same.

  
She felt as if she had to be ready constantly, awaiting for the worst and facing the future alone was extremely scary.

  
But small achievements like this… just the fact that she found a new job, gave her the hope that she still may have the chance to shape her own future. And that was so relieving.

  
JJ was with Jesse’s parents again, he loved it there, and they seemed to love having him around.

  
Jesse’s mom often would say how much JJ remember her to her son, and it was true. Dina loved to have their support, it was great to count on them. And even if she felt a bit guilty about it… it was a relief to let him there some times because it allowed her to have some time on her own.

  
She loved spending time with her son, but somedays she just needed the silence, and to be by herself at least for an hour.

  
Dina had to pick him up soon, but she had some time. She thought maybe she could drink some tea, take a bath, relax a little bit and then go pick him.

  
It seemed like a good plan and she sure was in an amazing mood.

  
So it was decided.

  
She smiled to herself as she approached home, she could see the fence and her flowers from a few meters. She loved the feeling of having a place to call her own and be able to freely decorate it and find shelter in it.

  
Her smile quickly faded away when she spotted someone in her porch.  
Instantly her mood changed, she furrowed her brow, swallowed a lump in her throat and felt a rush of rage and fury running through her spine.

  
Dina opened the fence's door, crossed the small yard and stood there looking into the visitors eyes with hatred.

  
“What the fuck are you doing here” she said coldly.

  
Her voice deepened. And her words came out extremely sharp. Her grip on the groceries bag tightened so much that she could feel the material ripping off a little bit.  
Tommy was sitting in her porch.

He was there, quietly sitting, his hands resting on his lap as his gaze was lost in the horizon.

  
He took a moment to react, and looked at Dina with a melancholic stare.

  
“Dina” he said politely.

  
“Fuck off” she said as she moved to the door.

  
“Dina” he repeated “I need to-”

  
“I said, fuck off Tommy” Dina repeated, she turned around abruptly facing him, he stood up slowly to approach her but she just took a step back. “You don’t get to come to my house out of the blue anymore. You are not welcomed here, I don’t give a fuck about what you need”.

  
Tommy nodded in understanding, he fidgeted with his fingers for a second and then tuckher his hands on the pockets of his jeans.

  
“I understand” he whispered.

  
“If you understand then go”.

  
“I can’t, I have to speak with you!” Tommy insisted.

  
Dina could feel her body shaking, her eyes filled with tears that she held back and she felt a pulsing rage about to explode in her chest.

  
“You and I have nothing to talk about” she said harshly.

  
Tommy took a step towards her to try and calm her but Dina took a step back.

  
“Look, I know you don’t want to see me, I understand that, you have all the right, but you have to listen to me”.

  
“I have nothing to say to you Tommy, and I don’t give a fuck if you want to tell me something”.

  
Tommy opened his mouth as if he was going to speak again but then Dina kept speaking angrily. “Last time you came to talk you destroyed my family” she stopped talking as she felt a huge lump in her throat and tears running down her cheeks.

  
“That’s what you think then?” he said with a deep voice “You wouldn’t understand what was going on Dina…”.

  
“Trust me I understood. And I also understood very well how incredibly selfish you were”.

  
“We needed justice!” Tommy said with decision.

  
“You wanted revenge! And since you couldn’t get it you had to come and mess up with our lives… how did that go huh?”.

  
Tommy swallowed and looked down. “I never expected you to forgive me”.

  
“Good” Dina said “We were starting a new life… we didn’t have everything figured out but we finally had our chance. Everything was starting to be at least half normal and you had to come and fuck everything up!”.

  
“This is not about you Dina” Tommy said after a moment of thinking “I get that you’re hurt but what happened… do you think that Ellie wouldn’t have gone after a while anyways?”.

  
“Shut up”.

  
“I was a selfish dick, but you are too by thinking that your perfect life was ruined because of me”.

  
Dina pushed him back, so hard that Tommy stumbled and fell backwards, landing on the yard on his back.

  
In other circumstances he would’ve probably gotten extremely mad, he would have even gotten violent receiving such an agression. But then he saw Dina’s face.

  
He saw her eyes, the woman looked broken. Her eyes were red, filled with tears, her jaw was clenched and her fists were tightened and her expression showed complete defeat and frustration. He stood up slowly as best as he could, Dina stared at him but didn’t help him, she could only stand there and cry.

  
“You came to my house with all those ideas again, you brought up an issue that we were trying to leave behind and what for?” Dina asked.

  
Tommy stood up as best he could, he removed some dirt from the back of his jeans and looked at Dina with an apologetical look.

  
“I lost my brother, Dina. Ellie lost the closest thing to a father that she had. He was taken from us”.

  
“You’re not the only ones who lost someone! We all here have lost someone and we all want revenge at some point but how did that work in the end huh? Joel’s still dead, Jesse as well, and now I lost Ellie”.

  
She wiped the tears on her cheeks with the back of her hands as she tried to muffled a sob.

  
“No Dina, you have to listen to me, Ellie…”

  
“Just shut up!” Dina yelled at him “I'm sick of going back to the same issue over and over, I don’t want to hear that name anymore and I don’t want to see you anymore. I want you to go”.

  
Tommy rubbed the back of his neck nervously “Please Dina, hear me out”.

  
“I swear to God that if you don’t leave in this moment I’m going to start screaming until everyone in the neighborhood hears me”.

  
Tommy saw the desperation in the woman’s face, he saw her red eyes, her tears, her anger, and her clenched fists and he knew then that trying to talk was a mistake. He knew from the beginning that it would not be easy.

Dina had been mostly recluded at home ever since she came back to town, and she never wanted to see him. The few times they crossed paths around town Dina always just walked away or took a different street, she avoided him. And Tommy certainly didn’t complain about it. Life was messed up now, everything was terribly bad lately, his marriage was destroyed, his body, even people around him. So he never tried to talk to Dina, it didn’t feel right. And seeing her reaction, he definitely knew that it would never be right.

Dina didn’t wait for him to say anything else, she looked at him one last time with a gaze of pure hatred and then she walked away, slamming the door as hard as she could.

  
“She’s not dead…” Tommy said raising his voice with the hope that Dina heard him at least. He waited a few seconds but everything was silent and the door didn’t open again.

  
Why did he went there? Tommy wasn’t sure, he never expected to be heard, but he needed to tell Dina, somehow he felt in debt with her somehow, it’s not like he felt extremely guilty. It was not his style, regretting things that were already done was stupid now, they could just keep living their lives but everything was so fucked up that he felt in debt.

  
After some minutes of waiting, he decided to leave. There was nothing else for him to do and Dina made it clear that she wanted him gone, so he did.

  
Dina was inside the house, her back resting against the door and her eyes shut tightly as she tried to steady her breathing. 

  
Her body was shaking, it started shaking the moment Tommy opened his mouth but now it was much worse. She was shaking so hard that she could even hear her teeth.

  
Why on earth couldn’t she just move forward. Why was it that every time that she finally took a step in the right direction, she collided with something on the way and just fell down.

  
Dina was exhausted, she was so tired of fighting against the ghosts of the past that she didn’t fell like she had strength anymore.  
She woke up every morning trying to focus on her family, and on moving on so she could find at least some peace. But it was impossible.

  
Seeing Tommy was like seeing a huge reminder of everything that she lost. It felt like for a moment she was at the farm again, the place where she felt safe, where she felt at ease and loved and then it was teared away from her chest without warning. 

  
The memories hurt, Ellie hurt so bad. Hearing her name was like getting shot in the guts. It was a forbidden name now, she did everything as possible not to say it or not to bring any conversations that could involve mentioning her. It was the best thing.

  
Ellie wasn’t a part of her life anymore, she was a fucking ghost. She was dead for fuck’s sake. And there was no point in going back to the old memories over and over.  
Dina cried. She cried so much that she forgot everything else. 

  
Her mind went blank, and as time passed she ended up laying on the floor hugging herself and sobbing loudly.

  
There were so many things that she wished she had said. Ellie left, just like that, she didn’t consider her family, or her relationship, she just left. And Dina wished she could at least had said how she felt before Ellie abandoned them. She wished Tommy never went to their house that day, she wished her life would have been better, and she wished so many things…

  
It didn’t matter what she could wish though. It was what it was, nothing could be done now. It had been almost two years, two years without hearing about Ellie. Two years mourning over a life that would never be the same, two years just diving into pain, hatred and just a big hole of emptiness.

  
Dina knew nothing she could do would bring her life back to the place she wanted.

Nothing she could do would give her back Ellie or their happiness.  
And as she thought deeper into it she realized that even if she could get that back.

She didn’t want it anymore.  
She missed it for sure. But what was the point of getting that back.

  
To see again how Ellie left? See once again how she put other people over herself? 

  
Dina was sick of that. She did plenty of waiting back in Seattle when they were locked up in that theater. She understood Ellie in a way and that’s why it hurt so deep.

  
She waited in that theater completely terrified; terrified that one day she had to wait for so long, not knowing what happened, only to realice after days of silence that Ellie was dead.

  
It was terrifying.

  
Whenever she heard the knocking on the door her heart jumped inside her chest and once she opened the door and saw Ellie’s face, everything felt right again.

  
Seeing her alive was a relief. But she couldn’t live like that forever…

  
When they moved to the farm it seemed like all that life was left behind. They were damaged, physically and mentally, but it was starting to work out.

  
They built a home together. Little by little they started to laugh again, to be them again and once JJ came, everything started to get better.

  
Dina had so many sweet memories of JJ’s first months of life. In fact, all the memories ever since they arrived at the farm were warm and sweet.

  
It was just the two of them against the world and it felt so nice. 

  
Dina felt like she had a real home again, and she felt loved and supported.

  
But she now questioned if all of that was real. Ellie never told her that she was feeling bad. At least not before the night she left.   
And Dina felt extremely guilty. She should have payed more attention maybe, or tried to speak to her about those problems. She could have done something to help Ellie…

  
Everything they built got destroyed in a matter of seconds.

  
The moment the door closed behind her. And she heard Ellie’s steps walking away, their entire life fell apart.

  
Dina truly loved her. And seeing her leave without really considering her family, considering what they had was so heartbreaking that now remembering her was just a painful task.

  
Remembering Ellie was like jumping into freezing cold water. It made her feel drowned and sick. Every single sweet memory she had, was now just a painful memory. 

  
The day Ellie left, she took with her a part of Dina. It was as if as she left, she took with her a part of Dina’s heart that now had turned into a giant hole inside her. 

  
It was so unfair. At least that’s what Dina thought. Now Ellie was dead. She was completely gone, there was no point in remembering anything. 

  
She left all of her stuff back in the farm precisely because she didn’t want to have any reminders of her. She was part of the past now, and there was no way Dina could move forward if she still kept those memories.

  
What Tommy said before, that she had been selfish too… maybe it was right. And thinking that made her cry harder. But maybe it was true. Maybe she just pushed the idea of the happy family too far. But what could she do?

  
JJ was there, maybe when they were alone it was okay to go on a revenge mission but what should Dina do after giving birth? 

  
They almost died once, actually more than once. And having a baby changed everything. She couldn’t just go chase people with a baby and a gun in the same hand. 

  
She had to deal with what happened for JJ and for Ellie as well. She didn’t want to bring up memories that could hurt Ellie even more. She tried to do the best for her and to be the best option for her so at least Ellie could feel home too.

  
It worked for a while. But then it didn’t.  
Probably that’s why everything just hurt so deep. Not just because of the love she felt or because of what she lost but because she realized that it hadn’t been enough. 

  
Life wasn’t so good usually. And loving Ellie, having a family, trying to help her… it wasn’t enough.

  
For Dina it was more than enough. But for Ellie it wasn’t.

  
Hours passed and Dina sobbed and sobbed uncontrollably as she thought of everything. She allowed herself to remember and go over each memory, analyzing it carefully. 

  
That was something she just tried not to do on a regular basis, because it made her fall into a spiral of sadness and pain and it was extremely hard to come back from there. But she didn’t care now.

  
She needed to think about everything and let some of the pain out or else she would explode.

  
Her body little by little calmed down, her raged shaking finally stopped after a few hours and her sobs turned into deep sighs.   
Her eyes were swollen. Her head hurt from all the crying and she felt drained.  
Dina just wanted to go to bed, slide inside the covers and sleep for ages.

  
That’s the only thing she wanted.   
Her perfect day was now a day she couldn’t wait to finish.

  
She still have to get JJ back, she still had to bathe him, cook, play with him…

  
And just by thinking of all the things she needed to do, it felt like she had to climb a high mountain. She didn’t have strength anymore. At least not today.

  
She didn’t have strength anymore, but she needed to have. She couldn’t give up yet, even if that’s what she really wanted.   
She’d never be able to move on like this, if every time she thought of Ellie she collapsed… she still needed more time.

  
Dina couldn’t wait to finally get to that day were she could just remember the past, remember the good things and be okay with it, she wanted more than anything to be able to be complete again by herself. 

  
But for the moment it felt like there was still a long road for her to get to that point.  
She hated her life, she hated Tommy, she hated Ellie, and she hated to be so broken. 

  
She wished things could be easy. But they weren’t. And now she had to figure out what to do with her life and her son by herself, trying to keep up her facade and putting her best smile to the world.

  
It was just such a hard thing to do, but Dina knew that if it helped her being a good mother and getting get life in the right direction, then it would be worth it.

  
She couldn’t just stay there and wait forever until she felt good, she needed to keep going even if she felt empty. She just felt like a sack of bones and muscles walking around.  
But she was hopeful that one day she would feel better.

  
She didn’t want to hear about Ellie anymore for the moment, if she wanted to heal she had to leave all that behind for real. She was done with the memories. Dina didn’t want to hear anything else about her, she didn’t want to see Tommy every again.

  
As she stood up a while ago, she thought that maybe she could talk to Maria. She could ask her to tell Tommy not go near her every again. She knew they weren’t together anymore, but he would hear Maria. And it would be the best for Dina. 

  
She couldn’t avoid him around town that was for sure, he lived there anyways but she didn’t have to stand him or see him in her house, her house was hers, it was her place. So she didn’t want anyone near it.

  
It was the best thing to do. Dina took the decision, she would speak to Maria the following day to tell her to keep Tommy away from her house. 

  
She went to the bathroom and splashed water all over her face trying to get rid of the sadness. 

  
The cold water made her shiver a bit but it felt nice, she felt refreshed and somehow it helped. 

  
She had a job now, a good way to start over. So she needed to stick with that. Do her best to focus on her job, on JJ and maybe once he was a little older and he could help her a bit, maybe they would go again.

  
Maybe once JJ was older, Dina and him could go back to find a farm, maybe not the one they had but a new one, outside town so they could just do their lives peacefully. That would be a good thing, and it would be a good thought to hold on to for the moment.

Between all the hopeless shits she was living, Dina needed to find at least something to feel like she had a chance.

  
One day she’d get her chance to be okay, but until then she had to cope with her shit as best as she could. She wasn’t going to give up easily.


End file.
